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DO NO HARM -- THAT is Hippocratic Medicine
Induced Abortion is NOT Health Care
Women Do Not NEED Abortion
Pro-Life Memorial Day -- 3 October 2011 (Monday)
Use the day to cherish the children...
www.ProLifeMemorialDay.com
Abortion Business Workers: Report Problems -- http://clinicworker.com/
Resources:Archives of the American Holocaust -- http://www.lifedynamics.com/library/
Books, writings, documents, and other materials from the Anti-Life advocates, 1917 - Present
Abortion is the #1 Killer of Blacks
http://www.blackprolifecoalition.org/nbpc-releases-number-one-killer-video/
Landmark Study Provides Further Evidence Abortion a Mental Health Risk for Many, Confirms AUL's Call for Informed Consent Laws
Reproductive Racism? Racial Targeting? Most U.S. Planned Parenthood Businesses Located in Minority Communities: Report
Planned Parenthood: 38.4% of Its Income Comes From Abortions
Albuquerque’s Sandia Foundation, as Landlord, Profits From Abortion Business
56% of Abortions in New York City are Repeat Abortions
Perjury, Fraud, Grand Theft, Alcoholism: California Disciplines Two Notorious Abortionists
Commentary: New Evidence Shows Depth of Tiller Crimes
Dirty Louisiana Abortion Facility Ordered Closed Again / Abortion Facility Cited for Violations in Louisiana Closes
Commentary: Abortion Proponents Twist Science and Advances in Medicine
Racial Profiling by Planned Parenthood and the American Abortion Lobby Documented
Study: ‘Catastrophic Outcomes’ When Ectopic Pregnancies Misdiagnosed, ‘Treated’ with Abortion
A New Tool to Protect Young Women from Forced Abortion / New Tool in the Challenge to Protect Young Women from Forced Abortion, Part 2
Planned Parenthood Abortion Center Preys on Teenagers
Pregnant On Campus Initiative: Responding to Women’s Needs
Several Articles: Analysis of 22 Worldwide Studies Confirms that Abortion Harms Women's Mental Health
Women Should be Told of Abortion-Mental Health Link Risks / Largest Ever Study Finds Abortion Increases Risk of Severe Mental Health Problems by 81%
Mainstream Media Ignores Report on How Abortion Businesses Target Minorities
Troubled Abortionist Convicted of Credit Card Fraud Admits Lying to Gain Licensure in Utah
Two Planned Parenthood Abortion Workers Quit
Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS) Expands Abortion
Latest Abortion Statistics for Louisiana and for the USA (as of August 2011)
Abortion Economics 101: If This Doesn't Shock You, Wait Until You See the Bill!
LEGISLATION
Alabama Fetal Pain Abortion Ban Goes Into Effect 1 September 11
2011 Louisiana Legislative Summary
Nebraska Webcam Abortion Ban Now In Effect
COURT CASES
Alabama Supreme Court Gives Legal Recognition to the Unborn Child / Alabama Supreme Court Upholds Unborn Victims Law
Appeals Court Upholds Critical Portions of South Dakota Informed Consent Law / Court Victory: South Dakota Informed Consent Law Describing Abortion Risks is OK
CONSCIENCE
National Life Chain Influences Public Debate for Conscience Rights / Trying to Stop Erosion of the Right of Conscience
INTERNATIONAL
Philippines Sees Maternal Mortality Decline Without Abortion...
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Be a Life Hero!
The staggering economic impact of abortion is one of the most powerful messages we can use to change public opinion about abortion. It has already cost us more than $40 trillion in lost GDP and eliminated 30% of the under-40 generation.
America can't survive another abortion generation...
HELP SPREAD THE WORD...
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AAPLOG Comments / Landmark Study Provides Further Evidence Abortion a Mental Health Risk for Many, Confirms AUL's Call for Informed Consent Laws
This is our 4th letter commenting on the Coleman Study in the new Brit J Psychiatry. Why are we spending so much ink on this?? Because it is the largest quantitative study on this topic that has been done. It represents the mental health experience of 877,000 women. And have you seen it reported in any mainstream media?? Minimal reporting there, if any. The philosophy seems to be, "ignore it, trivialize it, it will go away." We strongly urge you: Become familiar with with this study says about abortion and adverse effects on women's mental health. Know this stuff!!
These comments are from Americans United for Life:
Landmark Study Provides Further Evidence Abortion a Mental Health Risk for Many, Confirms AUL's Call for Informed Consent Laws
"The fact that 81 percent of women experienced a higher risk of mental health issues following an abortion should be enough for all sides of the life debate to agree that informed consent laws are needed in every state," said AUL's Dr. Charmaine Yoest.
A study on the mental health effects of abortion released recently could have a huge impact on future discussions of the procedure. The new study is the work of Priscilla K. Coleman, a research psychologist and Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green State University.
Coleman published the study September 1 in The British Journal of Psychiatry (BJP), a publication of Britain's Royal College of Psychiatrists. The study, entitled "Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995-2009," critically reviewed the results of 22 previous studies on abortion and mental health published between 1995-2009. These 22 studies included data on 877,181 women from six countries, 163,831 of whom had experienced an abortion.
The results revealed moderate to high increased risk of mental health problems after abortion. Women with a history of abortion had an 81% higher risk of subsequent mental health problems. More specifically, the study found that women with a history of abortion had an increased risk of anxiety (34% higher), depression (37% higher), alcohol (110% higher), marijuana use (220% higher), and suicidal behavior (155% higher).
Dr. Yoest noted that the study's data confirmed consistent calls from AUL for informed consent laws for women.
"The results are shocking, and the findings provide further evidence of the terrible toll that abortion takes on the lives of the women who are given too little information about the abortion procedure," said Dr. Yoest.
[Sept 14, 2011, www.aaplog.org]
Reproductive Racism? Racial Targeting? Most U.S. Planned Parenthoods Located in Minority Communities: Report
A survey of all U.S. ZIP codes where Planned Parenthood clinics are located in the United States has found that most are located in areas with a minority population significantly higher than the state average.
Authored by Life Dynamics president Mark Crutcher with the help of researcher Carole Novielli and production assistant Renee Hobbs, the report, “Racial Targeting and Population Control,” aims to bolster the group’s claims made in its 2009 documentary Maafa 21. The film outlined how the family planning movement is rooted in 20th-century eugenicism that aimed at reducing minority populations, a goal Planned Parenthood’s business strategy reflects to the present day.
In the abstract, Crutcher writes that the film’s findings had been battled back by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), a research institution financially affiliated with Planned Parenthood, which claimed that only one in 10 Planned Parenthood clinics was located in a minority area.
“The reality is, the research in AGI’s report had been manipulated to yield pre-determined results,” writes Crutcher, who notes that non-abortion facilities and those performing under 400 abortions per year were excluded.
Using data from Planned Parenthood’s website and the 2000 U.S. Census, Crutcher’s team broke down by zip code each Planned Parenthood clinic as well as each non-Planned Parenthood abortion clinic affiliated with the National Abortion Federation or the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.
The data shows a large proportion of both clinic types located in disproportionately minority neighborhoods, including 51% of all Planned Parenthood clinics located in areas at or above 125% of the state minority average.
“What I was stunned to see is how many of these zip codes were 250 percent, 300 percent, 700 percent, 1800 percent higher [minority concentration above state average],” Crutcher told LifeSiteNews.com in a telephone interview last week.
In addition, of the 116 ZIP codes found to have more than one population control facility, 84 were disproportionately black and/or Hispanic. Crutcher’s research paper points to a New Jersey zip code with nearly three times the average black population and four population control facilities, and a Minnesota ZIP code with nearly eight times the number of blacks and three such facilities.
Given the relatively small area of each ZIP code - there are 46,000 in the United States - Crutcher said the numbers are “just staggeringly high.”
Crutcher said that because he and his staff are not trained statisticians, he chose to simply release the raw data to let it speak for itself.
Michael New, a political scientist and assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, told LifeSiteNews.com that Crutcher’s report did “a thorough job” proving the high concentration of family planning clinics in minority neighborhoods, and debunking Guttmacher’s claims to the contrary.
“They [Guttmacher] get away with a lot, and I think that this does pretty clearly refute their idea,” New told LSN.
Click here to view the report -- http://www.prolifeamerica.com/Racial-Targeting-Population-Control.pdf
[19 Sept 11, Kathleen Gilbert, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/most-us-planned-parenthoods-located-in-minority-communities-report?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=51b2a35fb1-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines09_19_2011&utm_medium=email]
Planned Parenthood: 38.4% of Its Income Comes From Abortions
Although Planned Parenthood officials like to talk about how a small percentage of the “services” it provides women are abortion-related, an analysis from Live Action indicates 38.4 percent of its income is derived from abortions.
Live Action spokesman David Schmidt says Planned Parenthood is misleading the public when it talks about how important and influential its abortion business is to its overall bottom line.
“Planned Parenthood likes to talk about how only 3% of their services are abortion,” he writes at the Live Action blog. “A simple example of how they come to this calculation would be Planned Parenthood aborting 3 children and giving out 97 condoms. They would say that out of 100 services, 3 or 3% were abortion when in reality the significance and cost of the 3 abortions is much higher than 3% of their efforts.”
“Planned Parenthood’s accounting of 3% is misleading and not consistent with the rest of the business world,” Schmidt continued.
“In college I interned at the airline manufacturer Boeing, which sells a lot of airplanes and also a lot of spare parts for those airplanes. For every airplane they sold for tens of millions of dollars, they also sold lots of spare parts for as little as 25 cents. By looking at TOTAL number of sales, you could conclude that 1% of their business was selling airplanes and 99% was spare parts, which is totally ridiculous,” he explained. “The reality was the value of the airplanes sales was close to 99% of their business and the spare parts 1%. Looking at the cost and effort of what is being offered is a much more accurate way to measure.”
For remainder of article -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/20/planned-parenthood-38-4-of-its-income-comes-from-abortions/
Albuquerque’s Sandia Foundation Profits From Abortion Business
A pro-life organization focused on exposing a troubled late-term abortion business in New Mexico that has had to call 911 repeatedly because of botched abortions indicates an Albuquerque foundation is benefited financially from it.
Operation Rescue released documents today showing the Sandia Foundation is a landlord for Southwestern Women’s Options, a late-term abortion facility owned and operated by abortion practitioner Curtis Boyd and his wife, Glenna Halvorson Boyd. The pro-life group says the Sandia Foundation “is a respected non-profit corporation based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with roots in the Catholic Church.”
“This puts the Sandia Foundation squarely in the abortion business. They profit from the lease and therefore are enablers and collaborators in Boyd’s grisly late-term abortion business,” OR president Troy Newman says.
Bernalillo County records that the group obtained show Sandia owns the land at 522 Lomas Boulevard, Northeast, in Albuquerque, and continues to pay taxes on that property and some improvements. Curtis Boyd only pays property taxes for personal property located at that address. The Assignment and Assumption of Lease document is signed by the Boyds and Sandia President and Chief Executive Officer Robert M. Goldman, who acts as the “landlord” for the abortion business, Newman says. He explained that Sandia originally made a “ground lease” on the property with Neurosurgery Partners in 1983 and said that company transferred their lease to the Boyds in July 2008. In December 2010, Goldman signed a transfer of the lease from Curtis and Glenna Boyd to 522 Lomas, LLC, a limited liability company controlled by the Boyd’s.
“Sandia was founded ‘to aid and assist educational, scientific, benevolent, religious and charitable institutions’, not to profit from the shedding of innocent blood though abortion,” said Newman. “We urge Sandia to get out of the abortion business and return to the noble purpose that group was founded upon.”
Newman highlighted several members of the Sandia board and urged pro-life advocates in New Mexico to contact them urging them to get the foundation out of the abortion business.
# Vaden Bales, CEO of Wrangler Properties LLC, a commercial real estate development and investment company.
# Bernard “Gig” Brummell, a Branch Manager for Dean Whitter and former UNM baseball star who serves on the Archdiocese of Santa Fe Finance Council.
# Don Chalmers, owner of Don Chalmers Ford dealerships in Rio Rancho, Santa Fe and Albuquerque
# Rod J. Pera, who has been deeply involved in the Hershey Chocolate empire.
# Robert M. Goldman, an Albuquerque banking executive and former president of Sunwest Bank.
# Suzanne Barker Kalangis, Executive Director of the Thornburg Charitable Foundation and Manager of Barker Properties real estate companies.
# Annette S. Parker, Vice President and Treasurer of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
# John Perovich, former President of the University of New Mexico.
Operation Rescue urged pro-life advocates to contact the Sandia Foundation at
, or call 505-242-2684 to complain.
The organization has released recordings of several emergency calls staff at Southwestern Women’s Options have made about abortions that have injured women. A series of botched abortions in New Mexico have prompted state officials there to launch investigations into three late-term abortion practitioners exposed by Operation Rescue.
After the release of the original calls, involving Southwestern and UNM Hospital, which operates its own abortion business, the UNM Center for Reproductive Health, OR told LifeNews it has been notified by the New Mexico Board of Physicians that three Albuquerque abortion practitioners are under investigation. Shelley Sella and Susan Robinson, late-term abortion practitioners who formerly worked for the nation’s largest late-term abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas, prior to its closure in 2009 are two of the three facing probes.
One abortion clinic worker from Southwestern Women’s Options expressed concern over the questions the 911 dispatcher was asking. While she thought she was on hold, this exchange took place:
SWO Employee:[Whispering] I don’t know – I don’t know what information he’s asking me.
Background Voice: Just talk to him – act dumb.
SWO Employee: [Whispering] Okay. Exactly. Yeah.
The latest tapes obtained under an open records act request made by Tara Shaver of Project Defending Life, who forwarded the recordings to Operation Rescue.
They show women ranging in ages from 18 to 34 who were between 8 weeks and approximately 24 weeks pregnant. Complications included:
# Uterine rupture with heavy bleeding.
# A panic-stricken 18-yer old patient with chest pains, numbness, and a severe headache after a late-term abortion.
# Cervical laceration with hemorrhaging.
# Uncontrolled bleeding after first and second trimester abortions.
# Multiple seizures.
# Abortion on a woman with an undiagnosed ectopic (tubal) pregnancy.
OR obtained the audio of a handful of 911 calls showing women victimized by failed abortions at an abortion center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The series of calls were made over a recent 15-month period from Southwestern Women’s Options, an abortion clinic in Albuquerque that it says is presiding over abortions that are clearly dangerous for women.
[Ertelt | Albuquerque, NM | LifeNews.com | 9/12/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/12/albuquerques-sandia-foundation-profits-from-abortion-business/ ; September 19, 2011, LifeSiteNews.com]
56% of Abortions in New York City are Repeat Abortions
New research from a organization that has spent considerable time unpacking new statistics showing the abortion rate in New York City is twice the national average shows Manhattan may have the highest abortion rate of any city in the U.S.
The Chiaroscuro Foundation examined the data surrounding New York City’s staggering 41% abortion ratio, breaking the figures down by zip code, and its new analysis shows the zip code with the highest abortion ratio in the city, 67%, is in Manhattan’s Chelsea-Clinton neighborhood.
“The data, which was provided by the New York City Department of Health at the Chiaroscuro Foundation’s request, show the abortion rate by the zip code of residence of women receiving abortions in New York City,” the organization noted. “The zip code with the highest ratio, 10018, is in the Chelsea-Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan, with a ratio of 67%, followed by rates of 60% in two Jamaica, Queens zip codes and in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, 10012, and Central Harlem-Morningside Heights neighborhoods.”
“The five zip codes with the lowest abortion ratios are on the Upper East Side, in Lower Manhattan, on the Upper West Side, and in Borough Park, Brooklyn. The lowest ratio, 6.12%, is in 10162,” it continued.
The Chiaroscuro Foundation also asked for information from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene about the number of repeat abortions and it found that, in 2009, 48,627 of the 87,273 abortions in New York City, or 56%, were repeat abortions and 33,401, 38%, were paid for by Medicaid.
Greg Pfundstein Executive Director of the Chiaroscuro Foundation, told LifeNews he is dismayed by the numbers but knows they are accurate... “The Chiaroscuro Foundation is grateful to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for providing this detailed data; no city in the nation keeps better, more current records. Even so, given the city’s extremely high abortion rate, we renew our call for Mayor Bloomberg to instruct the Department to release the data in an even more current fashion: preliminarily month by month throughout the year.
"Remember, we are still talking about 2009 data. By being able to measure where the highest rates of abortion are occurring in the city, we can determine over time what methods of outreach work best to lower those rates.”
...Sixty-four percent (64%) of New Yorkers believe the abortion rate is too high in New York City – including 57% of pro-choice women – according to a poll conducted by the polling firm McLaughlin & Associates for the Foundation earlier this year. Seventy four percent believe that the overall 60% abortion rate in the African American community is too high.
Find more information on the New York abortion figures at http://www.nyc41percent.com
For the remainder of this article, visit the link below.
[Ertelt | New York, NY | LifeNews.com | 9/9/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/09/shock-56-of-abortions-in-new-york-city-are-repeat-abortions/]
Perjury, Fraud, Grand Theft, Alcoholism: California Disciplines Two Notorious Abortionists
Two California abortionists, Jesse James Joplin and Feliciano Rios, have fallen under discipline from the California Medical Board this month.
Documents show that Jesse James Joplin, an abortionist with Planned Parenthood Mar Monte for 27 years, had his licensed revoked after repeatedly violating probations imposed by the board. Joplin’s discipline arises from years of alcoholism, for which his reported attempts at recovery have been unsuccessful. Planned Parenthood continued to employ doing surgical abortions, though his alcohol abuse was reportedly evident.
Joplin’s license was permanently revoked on September 13, 2011.
The medical license of Feliciano Rios, of Chula Vista, California, was suspended for 60 days in an order issued by the Board that went into effect on September 20, 2011.
Rios’ discipline is the result of criminal felony convictions for grand theft, Medi-Cal fraud, and perjury. Rios was placed on probation after those convictions and restricted from owning firearms. After records showed that Rios failed to transfer ownership of his weapons, police searched his abortion clinic and found three handguns, two of which were semi-automatic, locked in a filing cabinet fully loaded with ammunition. Possession of the firearms constituted a violation of his criminal probation.
In addition to the suspension, Rios is ordered to take an ethics course and not engage in the solo practice of medicine. Another physician will be appointed to monitor Rios once his suspension is served.
“It’s hard to believe that, after all his crimes, Rios would not merit harsher punishment,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. Operation Rescue worked for years to expose Rios. “There’s no doubt that this man will re-offend. It’s unfortunate that the Board did not take stronger measures to protect the public.
“But for now, one very dangerous abortionist is permanently out of the business while another won’t be killing children for at least 60 days. That is great news for women and their pre-born babies. More than ever Boards are beginning to take action against offending abortionists. The days of governmental agencies protecting them at any cost are coming to an end in this nation. This is one more message to abortionists everywhere that they are not above the law.”
Operation Rescue is offering a $25,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of abortionists who are breaking the law.
Commentary: New Evidence Shows Depth of Tiller Crimes
On Monday of this week, the Kansas Board of Healing Arts launched an inquiry into the medical practice of one Dr. Ann Kristin (Kris) Neuhaus... this hearing is showing those who care to look what a stone cold serial killer was Neuhaus' patron, the late abortionist, George Tiller. As such, it deserves much more attention than it has been getting.
For several years, Neuhaus made an unhealthy chunk of her income by providing Tiller the second opinion required under Kansas law for a third-trimester abortion.
According to that law, a doctor could abort a fully viable baby only if he and a second independent physician agreed that the abortion would prevent the mother from suffering a "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" or save her life.
Neuhaus was paid to rubber stamp Tiller's opinion. In that late-term abortions do nothing positive for a woman's physical health, Tiller almost always diagnosed an impending mental-health breakdown. As a result, all of Neuhaus' second opinions under review concern the mother's mental health.
Although Tiller claimed 60,000 late-term abortions over his long career, the Board focused its investigation on just 11 of them from 2003, all involving girls 18 and under whose babies had lived more than 25 weeks in the womb.
In the course of its first few days, the hearing shed more light on Tiller's practices than had been shed in the seven or so years Tiller and/or Neuhaus had been under scrutiny.
Indeed, Tiller and the local media branded intrepid Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline as "Snoop Dog" for daring to probe into Tiller's practice, and he had revealed nowhere near the information introduced by day two of the hearing.
Expert witness Dr. Liza Gold of Georgetown University withheld names but little else. Having reviewed the files, she shared the symptoms that led Tiller and Neuhaus to declare a "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function."
One 15-year-old girl, for instance, had stated, "Horses are my life, and having kids would mess that up for barrel racing."
Unwilling to diagnose RDS, "rodeo derivation syndrome," Neuhaus chose "major depression, single episode."
This thoroughly corrupt diagnosis allowed Tiller to take the life of a healthy baby fully capable of living outside the womb and a $6,000 fee to ease his conscience.
The transaction, however, was allowed to take place in Kansas only because Tiller had bought off the Democratic and moderate Republican establishment.
When Republican Attorney General Kline made serious efforts to hold Tiller to the law, Tiller invested a reputed $2 million in the 2006 election alone.
This election assured the defeat of the incumbent Kline and the re-election of Democratic Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, now the secretary of health and human services.
While still under criminal investigation, Tiller celebrated the victory with Sebelius at the governor's mansion. The pictures are priceless.
Even with Sebelius' help, in a deep red state like Kansas, Tiller needed the media to hold off reform and keep his practice alive. This he did not even have to pay for.
In 2006, for its repeated slander of the "anti-choice extremist" Kline, the Kansas City Star won Planned Parenthood's top media honor, the "Maggie Award," named for its eugenicist founder, Margaret Sanger.
The media refused to see that the case of the young rodeo star was something of a cavalier norm at Tiller's Wichita clinic. "Teen pregnancy is not a risk factor for psychiatric disorders," Dr. Gold said when challenged by Neuhaus' attorney.
Gold added, "Late-term abortion is not a treatment or intervention for any psychiatric condition."
Even if it were a treatment, Gold made clear, Neuhaus' evaluations were a joke. To assess the girls' mental health, Neuhaus used a computer-generated answer tree that gave a 10-year-old rape/incest victim the same "impairment rating" as an unhappy 15-year-old with a boyfriend.
Some evaluations lasted no more than 15 minutes before Neuhaus casually sentenced an innocent baby to death. In no case did Neuhaus arrange follow-up care for these girls to deal with their "substantial and irreversible" impairments.
At the hearing's end, the administrative judge will make a recommendation to the full board as to whether Neuhaus properly observed professional protocols. Worst case, Neuhaus will lose her medical license.
This will represent the extent of the earthly punishment for the killing of 60,000 babies in gross violation of the state's laws...
Read more: New evidence shows depth of Tiller crimes -- http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=345569#ixzz1YMQYgHAT
[Posted: September 16, 2011, For this complete article, visit -- http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=345569]
Dirty Louisiana Abortion Facility Ordered Closed Again
For the third time, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) has issued a cease and desist order to Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women in New Orleans, Louisiana. The clinic has been found to have health code violations and inadequate nursing care that has created a danger to the public.
DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein issued a strongly worded press release on Tuesday. “The repeated violations of Gentilly Medical Center demand action,” he said. “I assure the public that as long as these facilities are under my watch, I will hold them accountable and use every tool available to make sure Louisianians are not put in danger.”
Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women in New Orleans, Louisiana
This week’s action was taken after the Gentilly clinic failed an inspection on August 29, 2011, which was conducted to confirm whether or not deficiencies had been corrected. Investigators found that they had not, and additional violations were discovered, including filthy conditions in the abortion room.
“Fundamentally, this is about the health and safety of women, first and foremost,” said Secretary Greenstein in his press statement. “No one should have to face these kinds of conditions regardless of the medical services they are seeking. Enough is enough. I will do everything in my power to keep this place closed.”
“Women deserve better than to be forced to endure such appalling third-world conditions as found at the Gentilly abortion mill,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “If these abortion clinics won’t keep the law and clean up, they should be closed.
“The truth is that regulations do work to close clinics and save lives because it gives authorities the mechanism they need to step in when the abortionists predictably refuse to comply. That makes it a safer world for pregnant moms and their pre-born babies.”
Each time the DHH has attempted to protect women from the dangers at the Gentilly clinic, the owner, abortionist Ifeanyi Charles Anthony Okpalobi, has appealed the ruling, which has allowed him to remain open even though his operating license has been revoked. An appeal of the current DHH order to cease operations is still possible.
[Sep 09, 2011, Kathleen Gilbert, NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/dirty-dangerous-louisiana-abortion-facility-ordered-closed-again?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=73dbb2a7be-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines09_09_2011&utm_medium=email]
Abortion Facility Cited for Violations in Louisiana Closes
Louisiana state health officials have closed for good the Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women abortion business after it failed to respond to actions the state took to revoke its medical license for repeated violations.
The Associated Press reports that late Tuesday Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein issued the order closing the abortion clinic after initially revoking its medical license on May 25 after a probe found repeated health and safety violations putting women’s health at risk. That was the second order the clinics received — the first one coming in January 2010 for failing to follow basic medical laws.
Officials told AP the appeal of the January 2010 order was moving ahead when another inspection found additional violations that led to the May order. Because the Gentilly Medical Clinic did not appeal the May order, DHH spokeswoman Lisa Faust said the abortion center now has “no legal recourse” to avoid shutting down.
The Louisiana health department has been acting under a new law that gives it more authority to close abortion centers that violate state health and safety standards.
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/07/abortion-facility-cited-for-violations-in-louisiana-closes/
Commentary: Abortion Proponents Twist Science and Advances in Medicine
Pro-life author and professor Dr William Brennan wrote in 1983 that “[t]he womb as a surgical theater for the unborn is the perfect paradigm for the schizophrenic world of contemporary medicine where killing and curing share a perverse state of compatibility.” He, as did many pro-lifers, knew science was on their side and that the more our understanding of the human life cycle was broadened, the more the world would begin to see unborn life as worthy of legal protection.
But no one underestimated the “awesome ability of modern destructive technology to keep the victims’ plight concealed,” as Dr. Brennan put it.
Nothing illustrates this point better than today’s abortion industries pushing to introduce webcam abortions deep into the American heartland and their obstinance in denying what scientific evidence has shown: that the unborn child can feel pain.
Richard Carlile, an activist publisher in 19th Century England who fervently believed in population control observed: “The destruction of conceptions [abortions] have been sought by acts of violence, by doses of poison, that must injure, if not destroy, the body of the mother to reach that of the foetus in her womb. This is dreadful, truly dreadful.”
I would argue that any chemical mixture which has the record of RU486 constitutes a modern dose of poison that injures, if not destroys, the body of the mother to destroy the life within her. This is a harmful practice so contradictory to the very idea of medicine, that it was obvious even to a population control advocate almost 200 years ago.
Consider that even under the controlled conditions of clinical trials for RU486 in which the most physically ideal candidates were selected, the drug cocktail put one in 100 users in the hospital. Two percent of women had such severe bleeding that they required surgery. During U.S. trials, one woman in Iowa nearly bled to death.
Despite this, it is the mindset of the abortion industry today to cherry-pick what science and modern technology has to offer and turn it deadly.
It is this mindset that took advances in antisepsis and advocated for creating a legal right to abortion. It takes medical sonography and uses it to guide the abortionist’s tools. It takes pharmaceutical and telecommunication advances and produces a “telemedicine” webcam abortion facilities wherein a mother may be administered the deadly drug RU-486 at a great distance from the prescribing doctor. It is a mindset that manipulates science with only the goal of honing its lethal efficiency in ending unborn human life.
That is why it should not surprise us that the abortion industry opposes the Unborn Child Pain Prevention Act, the only humane response and reasonable legal conclusion to the scientific evidence that the developing unborn human is capable of experiencing tremendous pain by at least 20 weeks after fertilization.
These are the same people who keep trying to make the oxymoronic phrase “abortion care” stick.
Pro-lifers put up with a lot of abusive language from detractors who call us anti-choice, anti-science and backward. But I have to ask: Who is backward if not the proponents of using all scientific and medical advancement to perfect the lethal efficiency of ending unborn life at the cost of the mother?
But if anything about abortion-on-demand as a policy should have been evidence of its backwardness, it is that it was and is based in an ideology that classifies an entire segment of humanity as “unwanted.”
[Luis Zaffirini | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 9/7/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/07/abortion-proponents-twist-science-and-advances-in-medicine/]
Racial Profiling by Planned Parenthood and the American Abortion Lobby Documented
A New Life Dynamics Expose confirms what was said in Maafa21. The report just released entitled: Racial Targeting and Population Control, documents that Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby has targeted black and/or Hispanic communities by placing facilities in areas where those minority populations are disproportionately represented.
For the entire report, Racial Targeting and Population Control, visit -- http://www.prolifeamerica.com/Racial-Targeting-Population-Control.pdf
Study: ‘Catastrophic Outcomes’ When Ectopic Pregnancies Misdiagnosed, ‘Treated’ with Abortion
The "catastrophic outcomes" included “severely malformed” newborns, miscarriages, and physician-advised deaths of the normally implanted babies through surgical abortions.
Alarming research from The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has detailed the “catastrophic outcomes” that occur when ectopic pregnancies are misdiagnosed and then “treated” with chemical abortions – something the authors say amounts to a “serious public health issue.”
Citing previous studies, the new study reveals that a full 40% of initial diagnoses of ectopic pregnancy are erroneous, although it is unclear how many of these are ultimately mistreated as ectopic.
An ectopic pregnancy occurs when the developing baby lodges in the mother’s fallopian tube instead of her uterus. The growing baby may rupture the blood vessels of the fallopian tube, causing severe blood loss and even death to the mother.
The study, “Outcome Following High-Dose Methotrexate in Pregnancies Misdiagnosed as Ectopic,” which is to be published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, tracked a number of mothers with normal, desired pregnancies, who were erroneously given high doses of Methotrexate in their first trimester to end a misdiagnosed ectopic pregnancy.
The study describes how all the misdiagnosed pregnancies ended with “catastrophic outcomes,” including the births of “severely malformed” newborns, miscarriages, and physician-advised deaths of the normally implanted babies through surgical abortions on account of the adverse effects of Methotrexate on the pre-born baby.
In the cases of the three women who subsequently underwent surgical abortions, their physicians advised the mothers to abort for fear of potential “medico-legal repercussions ensuing from adverse fetal outcome,” said the study.
All the mothers in the study reported “significant emotional suffering as a result of the misdiagnosis and dire outcomes.”
After outlining the messiness and horrors of Methotrexate as the standard method for dealing with ectopic pregnancies, the researchers conclude only that physicians should ensure that Methotrexate be used within the “correct therapeutic time window,” and that steps be taken to ensure more accurate diagnoses...
Dr. Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, professor of Bioethics and Philosophy... in Australia, told LifeSiteNews.com that the use of Methotrexate is a direct assault on the embryo and should never be used under any circumstances.
“I would not advocate the use of Methotrexate in the circumstances of pregnancy at any time. It is a poison which has … no legitimate purpose in relation to treating ectopic pregnancy.”
“It is a disaster to give a woman Methotrexate during pregnancy,” he said.
The FDA states that Methotrexate, which is also used in cancer treatments and in treating other conditions, in addition to inducing abortions, “interferes with DNA synthesis, repair, and cellular replication.” It especially affects tissues that increase rapidly in numbers such as “fetal cells.” Methotrexate has been reported to cause “fetal death and/or congenital anomalies,” and is “not recommended for women of childbearing potential.”
When asked if there is a better moral alternative for treating ectopic pregnancies, Dr. Tonti-Filippini pointed to recent studies that indicate that eighty percent of mothers with ectopic pregnancy will experience spontaneous resolution, with no medical intervention. The appropriate initial approach, he said, is one of “expectant management” in which the circumstances are observed until the gynaecologist determines that the woman is at risk of haemorrhaging.
“If she is at risk of haemorrhaging, which is life-threatening, it is at that stage legitimate to intervene in order to treat a life-threatening condition.” This becomes the “active management” stage of an ectopic pregnancy.
Pro-life ethicists have argued from the ethical criteria of “double-effect” that certain medical procedures are permissible to save the life of a mother with an ectopic pregnancy who is at risk of bleeding to death from a ruptured fallopian tube, even though the procedure may cause the unintentional and indirect death of the unborn child.
Tonti-Filippini said that a salpingectomy, which involves removing the segment of the fallopian tube containing the embryo, is a morally permissible means of dealing with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. In this procedure, the goal is to remove the life-threatening length of tube which carries the embryo, while the death of the embryo is an unintended side-effect.
In the case of the use of Methotrexate, said Tonti-Filippini, there is an intentional killing of the embryo, while with a salpingectomy there is an “effort to save the mother’s life, that indirectly affects the embryo.” Because of this, salpingectomy is a “legitimate and effective treatment for ectopic pregnancy,” said Tonti-Filippini.
With the research reporting such high numbers of misdiagnosed and mismanaged ectopic pregnancies, Tonti-Filippini said he would like to see “a greater call for training of ultrasonographers so that they can better identify ectopic pregnancy.” He also says he hopes that physicians will “adopt a more cautious approach than using Methotrexate.”
[Peter Baklinski, Sep 06, 2011, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/shock-study-describes-catastrophic-outcomes-when-ectopic-pregnancies-misdia?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e96526a7b8-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines09_06_2011&utm_medium=email]
A New Tool to Protect Young Women from Forced Abortion
In the maze of laws regarding reproductive rights, a teen mother's right to choose life for her child is oftentimes misunderstood, ignored, and violated by parents, boyfriends, school counselors, child protective services, and law enforcement.
Many times parents faced with their daughter's unplanned pregnancy mistakenly believe they have the right to force her to undergo an abortion. Similarly, a teen mother may believe her parents can force her to abort her baby, only to discover years or decades later, that the tragedy forced upon her could have been prevented.
The law is clear: no one legally can force a woman to have an abortion regardless of her age.
Despite the law, The Justice Foundation has become aware of numerous situations where a teen mother, who desires to give birth to her baby, is being forced by her parents to undergo an abortion. Teen mothers, if unaware of the law, can become victims of parents who schedule an abortion and take her against her will to an abortion facility. Sidewalk counselors frequently witness the situation of a young girl, accompanied by her parent, who is weeping uncontrollabley as she enters the abortion facility.
Numerous pregnancy care centers report being approached by teen mothers who have no where to turn after being told by her parent that she will be "kicked out" of the parent's home if she does not have an abortion. Unfortunately even some pregnancy care center volunteers may be unaware that a parent of a teen mother cannot force her to have an abortion.
Over the past years, The Justice Foundation frequently has been contacted by teen mothers, each wanting to keep her child over her parent's insistence that she have an abortion. In many of these situations, the attorneys at The Justice Foundation were able to convince the parents to either place their daughter in a maternity home or another amicable placement. However, a few of the parents were adamant that their daughter would not "ruin" her life by giving life to her child.
In these situations, either The Justice Foundation or a volunteer attorney has agreed to represent the teen mother in a court proceeding where a judge issues a court order preventing the parents from forcing their daughter to undergo an abortion.
In one situation, the father was served the judge's order while he and his daughter were in the abortion facility awaiting their turn for her abortion. In other situations, The Justice Foundation has learned that pregnancy care centers, school counselors, child protective services, and law enforcement are ignorant of the law and incorrectly have told parents and teen mothers that the parents can force their daughter to undergo an abortion despite the fact that she wants to keep her child.
Because of the frequency and prevalence of forced teen abortion by parents and other ill informed adults, The Justice Foundation has responded by creating the Center Against Forced Abortion (CAFA) and developed an effective strategy to assist any pregnant teen who is seeking to choose life for her child.
Because pregnancy resource centers are generally on front line in this battle to help the teen mother save her baby, CAFA provided 3000 pregnancy care centers across the nation with a document entitled the "Dear Parent Letter". This document clearly advises a parent they could be guilty of illegal actions if they force their daughter to have an abortion.
The letter is a proven strategy to defend teen mothers from parentally forced or coerced abortions. Most importantly, the letter equipes the pregnant teen with legal information empowering her in the decision to keep her child against her parent's desires. It gives the teen mother the critical information she needs and may not know; no one, not even her parents, can force her to have an abortion. The response has been tremendous!
Given the success of the "Dear Parent Letter", CAFA has made the letter and other helpful documents available on their website where anyone can download the letter to inform parents, boyfriends, school counselors, child protective services, law enforcement -- and teen mothers -- that no one legally can force a teen mother to undergo an abortion.
These forms are available at www.txjf.org -- click on the 'Center Against Forced Abortions'.
www.thejusticefoundation.org
www.operationoutcry.org
210.614.7157
[Kathleen Goodman, JD, Spring 2011, HLA Action News]
NEW TOOL IN THE CHALLENGE TO PROTECT YOUNG WOMEN FROM FORCED ABORTION, Part 2
In 2009, Center Against Forced Abortion (CAFA) was initiated when a fourteen-year-old mother sought help from the Justice Foundation... to protect the child in her womb from her father's attempts to force her to abort her little girl. The incredible frequency of parents of a teen mother taking her against her will to an abortion facility and forcing the teen mother to abort her child led to the development of CAFA. CAFA provides support and materials to help a young mother who is attempting to keep the child in her womb safe from forced abortion. See www.the justicefoundation.org , Center Against Forced Abortion.
Recently, CAFA was contacted regarding a teen mother in Kansas who was being forced by her parents to have an abortion. The contact person, her boyfriend's sister, described that the young mother had already run away from home to save her baby, but had been told by the police that there was nothing they could do to help her. CAFA, with the assistance of the Alliance Defense Fund, provided her with a Kansas attorney to help prevent her parents from forcing her to undergo an abortion.
The situation was quite tense. During the time the attorney went to court to obtain a court order prohibiting a forced abortion, her parents were driving the teen mother to the abortion facility. Individuals from a local pro-life group followed the parents' car to the abortion facility. When the parents' car stopped at a gas station, the pro-life individuals called police and told them that a court order had been entered. At the gas station the police were informed about the situation and asked to stop the child abuse -- the abortion -- and detain the parents until the court order arrived. This time, the police did their job and detained the parents until the paperwork arrived and the abortion was stopped. The following day, the teen mother's mother wept and thanked the baby's father for helping stop the abortion.
The law is clear: no one legally can force a woman to have an abortion regardless of her age.
But, just as the above situation involving the Kansas police illustrates, law enforcement, school counselors, social workers, and child protective services are often ignorant of the law and incorrectly have told parents and teen mothers that parents can force their daughter to undergo an abortion...
[For Resources, see Part 1 of this story, above.]
New Planned Parenthood Abortion Center Preys on Teenagers
Planned Parenthood of Watsonville, California recently celebrated its move to a new location with an open house. As usual, some of the features that have America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, the most excited are precisely the ones that should give everyone else pause.
Beyond – or perhaps intimately tied to – the expanded clinic’s ability to grow its abortion business, Planned Parenthood of Watsonville’s new location has a special area just for teens.
Pregnant On Campus Initiative: Responding to Women’s Needs
Students for Life of America is thrilled to announce our newest initiative: Pregnant on Campus!
The Pregnant on Campus Initiative is our response to the stunning statistic that over 46% of abortions in America are performed on college-aged women. When faced with an unintended or crisis pregnancy, many students feel forced to choose between continuing their education or raising their child. We know that too often, college campuses do not provide the necessary resources or environment that support pregnant and parenting students.
The Pregnant on Campus Initiative aims to address this issue by helping campus pro-life groups to create effective and lasting change on their campus. SFLA encourages and challenges pro-life groups to address this issue on their campuses by engaging in service activities geared to providing necessary resources to pregnant and parenting students.
Recently, we visited a college campus to ask students about pregnancy-friendly resources on their campus. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/07/pregnant-on-campus-initiative-responding-to-womens-needs/
Abortion and Mental Health: New Research Reveals Abortion Harmful to Women's Mental Health
The excellent new Coleman study in the Brit. J Psychiatry on mental health effects of abortion that we just wrote you about can be seen at:
More analysis/comments will be coming on this study in future letters.
[1 Sept 11, AAPLOG]
AAPLOG, 2 September 11, Part 2:
Why is the Coleman study in the current British Journal of Psychiatry so worth your study, and worth the attention of the medical community? Several reasons:
1. This review offers the largest estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature. The results revealed an 81% increased risk of mental health problems after abortion. Consistent with evidence-based medicine, this information should be used by health care professionals.
2. The paper is being published in a very prestigious journal, the British Journal of Psychiatry, which is considered one of the top psychiatry journals in the world. (That alone is remarkable!.) This means the paper has been extensively scrutinized by well-respected scientists. (This is not a conservative blog journal)
3. This meta-analysis is based on 22 published studies, from 6 countries, studying 36 effects, and it brings together data on 877,181 participants, 163,831 of whom experienced an abortion. That is a superb database.
4. When compared to "unintended pregnancy delivered," "pregnancy aborted" women had a 55% increased risk of experiencing any mental health problem.
Separate effects were calculated based on the type of mental health outcome with the results revealing the following: the increased risk for anxiety disorders was 34%; the increased risk for depression -- 37%; for alcohol use/abuse -- 110%; for marijuana use/abuse -- 220%; and for suicide behaviors -- 155%.
Clearly, abortion is a poor solution for an undesired pregnancy (and note that most abortions are done ostensibly to avoid emotional distress of some kind. These women are NOT avoiding emotional distress.)
The Abstract can be found at: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/199/3/180.abstract
ABSTRACT
The British Journal of Psychiatry (2011) 199: 180-186 doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.110.077230
"Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995–2009"
Priscilla K. Coleman
Conclusions: This review offers the largest quantitative estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature. Calling into question the conclusions from traditional reviews, the results revealed a moderate to highly increased risk of mental health problems after abortion. Consistent with the tenets of evidence-based medicine, this information should inform the delivery of abortion services.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 1, 2011
CONTACT: J.P. Duffy or Darin Miller, (866) FRC-NEWS or (866) 372-6397
New Research Reveals Abortion Harmful to Women's Mental Health
September 01, 2011
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a meta-analysis published today in the British Journal of Psychiatry, 81 percent of females who had an abortion were found to be at an increased risk for mental health problems, including depression, alcohol abuse and suicidal behaviors. The study, "Abortion and Mental health: Quantitative Synthesis and Analysis of Research Published 1995-2009" by Priscilla Coleman, Ph.D., took into account 22 studies and over 877,000 participants over the 14-year period.
Jeanne Monahan, Director of the Family Research Council's Center for Human Dignity, made the following comments about the extensive report:
"Dr. Coleman's research reveals the indisputable truth that abortion is bad for women's mental health. The fact that Coleman's study found 81 percent of women who have had an abortion to be at increased risk for significant mental health problems is proof of this. The study also reveals that as many as ten percent of all mental health problems are directly attributable to abortion.
"With this information, doctors now have a valid and unbiased synthesis of the current research available on the relationship between abortion and women's mental health. Because it is a meta-analysis the research is much more thorough and reliable than any other single study or review to date.
"Women need to know this information; they have the right to informed consent before choosing abortion. Abortion not only takes the life of a baby but it often causes much emotional harm to the mother."
To read the abstract of the article, click here: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/199/3/180.abstract
[1 Sept 11
Most Studies Show Abortion Linked To Increased Mental Health Problems
Women Cope with Delivery of Unplanned Pregnancy Better than Abortion
Women who have abortions are 81 percent more likely to experience subsequent mental health problems, according to a new study published byBritain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists. The greatest increases were seen in relation to suicidal behaviors and substance abuse.
The meta-analysis examined and combined results of 22 studies published between 1995 and 2009 and included data on 877,181 women from six countries. All 22 studies revealed higher rates of mental health problems associated with abortion for at least one symptom, and many for more than one symptom.
Using a standardized statistical technique for combining the results of multiple studies, the meta-analysis revealed that women with a history of abortion face higher rates of anxiety (34 percent higher) and depression (37 percent higher), heavier alcohol use (110 percent higher) and marijuana use (230 percent higher), and higher rates of suicidal behavior (155 percent higher).
The study also found that women who delivered an unplanned pregnancy were significantly less likely to have mental health problems than similar women who aborted unplanned pregnancies. Women with a history of abortion were 55 percent more likely to have mental health problems than women who did not abort an unplanned pregnancy.
The meta-analysis was conducted by Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a research psychologist at Bowling GreenStateUniversityinOhio. Coleman is the most published researcher in the field of abortion and mental health.
A statistical estimate of the overall population attributable risk revealed that up to 10 percent of mental health problems among women might be attributable to abortion.
According to Dr. David Reardon, who has published more than a dozen studies investigating abortion’s impact on women and is the director of the Elliot Institute, publication of this quantitative meta-analysis is long overdue.
“This is the first objective comparison of all the major studies,” Reardon said. “The tables demonstrate that when you put the results of all these various studies side by side in a standardized way, there is a remarkable consistency in the trend of findings. Despite the differences in study design, which have different strengths and weaknesses, the studies are all consistently pointing in the same direction.”
According to London's The Daily Mail, "[P]ublication in the peer-reviewed British journal is a signal that the psychiatric establishment is now taking seriously the possibility that abortion is a cause of anxiety, depression, alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide."
For remainder of the article, visit -- http://afterabortion.org/2011/most-studies-show-abortion-linked-to-increased-mental-health-problems/
[Source: Coleman PK. Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995–2009. The British Journal of Psychiatry (2011) 199, 180–186; Springfield,IL, September 1, 2011, Elliot Institute]
Major Study Links Suicide and Other Mental Health Problems to Abortion
Major Study Links Suicide and Other Mental Health Problems to Abortion Mary L. Davenport, MD
An important meta-analysis published today in the prestigious British Journal of Psychiatry demonstrates that nearly 10% of mental health problems in women are directly attributable to abortion. "Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995-2009," by Priscilla Coleman of Bowling Green University, shows that women with an abortion history have an 81% increased risk of mental health problems and 155% increased risk of suicide.
This meta-analysis combines 22 studies of 877,181 women, 163, 831 of whom have had abortions. A meta-analysis is an especially powerful type of study because it includes a large number of subjects, and by combining studies is much more reliable than a single study.
This review, which is larger than any study to date, contradicts the recent and biased and less systematic review by the American Psychological Association, which fails to find a relationship between mental health problems and abortion. The new meta-analysis also contradicts the stance of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which has been silent on the mental health impact of abortion in its official publications despite overwhelming evidence over the last two decades of abortion's adverse effects.
The egregious cover-up of abortion complications is an aspect of "the abortion distortion." Elites in charge of professional organizations actively suppress legitimate research on the harms of induced abortion because of political bias or worse.
One of the most notorious examples of "the abortion distortion" was the revelation that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan actually wrote part of ACOG's position statement on partial birth abortion while working as deputy assistant for domestic policy for Bill Clinton.
This new review in a prestigious psychiatry journal sheds important light on the mental health of women.
For example, South Korea not only has had a major increase in suicide but also holds the world record for the highest rate of female suicide. This country is also called "the abortion paradise" because at least 43.7% of pregnancies end in abortion. Suicide of young women is also a significant public health problem in China, which compounds the harmful psychological impact of abortion by governmental policy of forced abortion. The most sobering finding in the Coleman review is found in the section on "Population Attributable Risk," (PAR), in which the PAR for suicide was found to be 34.9%. PAR estimates the proportion of deaths in an entire population that could be prevented if the cause of death is eliminated (in this case abortion as the cause of suicide in women). By so powerfully linking abortion to mental health problems, the Coleman study helps us comprehend the magnitude of the damage done to entire nations by reckless, permissive abortion policies.
Mary L Davenport, MD, FACOG, is President, American Association of ProLife Obstetricians and Gynecologists www.aaplog.,org and Medical Director, Magnificat Maternal Health Program, www.mmhp.org
[1 Sept 2011]
Analysis of 22 Studies Confirms: Abortion Harms Women's Mental Health
By Susan E. Wills
September 2, 2011
The largest, most definitive analysis of the mental health risks associated with abortion was published September 1 in the prestigious British Journal of Psychiatry. Conducted by Priscilla Coleman, PhD of Bowling Green State University, the meta-analysis examines twenty-two studies published between 1995 and 2009 involving 877,181 women, of whom 163,831 had abortions.
Taking into account all the mental health problems studied—anxiety, depression, alcohol use/misuse, marijuana use and all suicidal behaviors—here is what this rigorous analysis found:
* ″Women who have had an abortion have an 81% higher risk of subsequent mental health problems compared to women who have not had an abortion.
* ″Women who aborted have a 138% higher risk of mental health problems compared to women who have given birth.
* ″Women who aborted have a 55% higher risk of mental health problems compared to women with an "unplanned" pregnancy who gave birth.
* ″Women with a history of abortion have higher rates of anxiety (34% higher), depression (37%), alcohol use/misuse (110%), marijuana use (230%), and suicidal behavior (155%), compared to those who have not had an abortion.
Dr. Coleman notes that a 2010 study by Canadian researchers (Mota et al.), published after she completed her analysis of the twenty-two studies, arrived at "strikingly similar" conclusions regarding the increased risk of mental health problems associated with abortion.
The staff... and counselors in Project Rachel, [a] post-abortion ministry, are well aware of the mental health problems women experience following an abortion. The national Project Rachel Ministry website, which lists offices to call for confidential help, receives countless letters from women and men expressing profound anguish, sometimes for decades after an abortion. Thousands of tragic personal stories are posted in chat rooms and on message boards like those at www.afterabortion.com. . . .
Yet, a handful of "pro-choice" academics continue to churn out papers attempting to show that "the few" women who have mental health problems after abortion are those who had mental health problems before their abortion. They claim that having an abortion is better for one's mental health than giving birth to an "unplanned" (and therefore to their mind "unwanted") child.
Dr. Coleman's meta-analysis disproves these contentions, weeding out weak and potentially biased studies by including only studies that (1) were published in a peer-reviewed journal, (2) had at least 100 participants in the sample, (3) used a comparison group (e.g., women who had given birth, women who had not had an abortion), (4) measured one or more outcomes, such as depression, substance abuse or suicidal behavior and (5) controlled for other variables, such as prior history of mental health problems or exposure to violence.
Health care professionals have a duty to advise patients of the benefits and risks of a procedure "in a manner that reflects the current scientific literature," so patients can make an informed choice. As former abortion clinic staff attest, and as undercover journalists in the U.S. and U.K. have discovered, counselors at abortion clinics conceal mental and physical health risks—as well as the fact that the procedure will violently end a child's life—in order to sell abortions.
Thanks to Dr. Coleman, the current scientific literature now proves that the increased risks to mental health from abortion outweigh any imagined "benefit" to women.
Women considering abortion deserve to be told these facts—but they won't hear them once they're inside the clinic. It is up to us to get the word out.
For more information, visit www.hopeafterabortion.org
[2 Sept 2011, http://www.usccb.org/about/pro-life-activities/life-issues-forum/life-issues-forum-11-09-02.cfm]
Women Should be Told of Abortion-Mental Health Link Risks
An organization for women who regret their abortions and leaders of pro-life groups are hailing a new study confirming that abortion causes a number of mental heath risks for women.
A new study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry by leading American researcher Dr. Priscilla Coleman of Bowling Green State University finds women who have an abortion face almost double the risk of mental health problems as women who have their baby. Coleman’s study is based on an analysis of 22 separate studies which, in total, examine the pregnancy experiences of 877,000 women, with 163,831 women having an abortion. The study also indicated abortion accounts for one in ten of every adverse mental health issue women face as a whole.
Leaders of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, the world’s largest network of women and men harmed by abortion, say that the report validates what many post-abortive women already know.
“This is not just another study. It’s historic,” Silent No More co-founder Georgette Forney told LifeNews. “It combines the results of 22 studies conducted over a 14-year period in six countries involving 877,181 women. And it confirms what Silent No More members have been saying all along – abortion harms women.”
Janet Morana, another co-founder of the group, told LifeNews, “This report is devastating to those who try to deny the hurt and anguish women suffer from abortion.”
“The cruelty of those who lie to pregnant women about abortion’s impact is compounded by the heartlessness of abortion industry propagandists who dismiss post-abortive women’s pain as non-existent. After this enormous scientific study, abortion’s apologists should apologize to the millions of women they’ve tried to marginalize,” she said...
Meanwhile, Jeanne Monahan, Director of the Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, agreed that the study makes it [clear that] women should be informed of the risks prior to having an abortion.
“Dr. Coleman’s research reveals the indisputable truth that abortion is bad for women’s mental health,” she said.
“The fact that Coleman’s study found 81 percent of women who have had an abortion to be at increased risk for significant mental health problems is proof of this. The study also reveals that as many as ten percent of all mental health problems are directly attributable to abortion.”
“With this information, doctors now have a valid and unbiased synthesis of the current research available on the relationship between abortion and women’s mental health. Because it is a meta-analysis the research is much more thorough and reliable than any other single study or review to date,” Monahan added. “Women need to know this information; they have the right to informed consent before choosing abortion. Abortion not only takes the life of a baby but it often causes much emotional harm to the mother.”
The peer-reviewed study indicated abortion was linked with a 34 percent chance of anxiety disorders, and 37 percent higher possibility of depression, a more than double risk of alcohol abuse (110 percent), a three times greater risk of marijuana use (220 percent), and 155 percent greater risk of trying to commit suicide.
...Dr. Coleman said she conducted the study “to produce an unbiased analysis of the best available evidence addressing abortion as one risk factor among many others that may increase the likelihood of mental health problems. There are in fact some real risks associated with abortion that should be shared with women as they are counseled prior to an abortion.”
“This review offers the largest estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature. The results revealed moderate to high increased risk of mental health problems after abortion. Consistent with evidence-based medicine, this information should be used by health care professionals,” Coleman said.
“Recently published, less systematic reviews of the scientific literature on abortion and mental health, including the American Psychological Association report and one by Johns Hopkins researchers among others, are prone to bias, and as a result actively mislead the public.”
The study is a meta-analysis, which is a quantitative or numerical synthesis of data from many previously published studies. In a meta-analysis all studies are not treated equally. Contributions of individual study effects to the overall results are weighted statistically based on sample size.
Only studies that meet very stringent methodologically-based criteria are entered into the analysis; whereas in other types of reviews authors may not reveal the criteria employed or the criteria may be too restrictive (missing valuable studies) or too general (including weak studies in conclusions), Coleman explained.
The bottom line is the results are far more reliable than the results of a single study or a qualitative review, because of the wealth of data incorporated and the objective methods for combining effects.
“The paper is being published in a very prestigious journal, the British Journal of Psychiatry, which is considered one of the top psychiatry journals in the world. This means the paper has been extensively scrutinized by well-respected scientists and the results of studies are trusted by practitioners throughout the world,” Coleman said.
[Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 9/2/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/02/women-should-be-told-of-abortion-mental-health-link-risks/
Largest Ever Study Finds Abortion Increases Risk of Severe Mental Health Problems by 81%
A new study published today in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that women who underwent an abortion experienced an 81% increased risk of mental health problems. The study also found that almost 10% of all women’s mental health problems are directly linked to abortion.
Dr. Priscilla K. Coleman
Conducted by Priscilla K. Coleman, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA, the study was based on an analysis of 22 separate studies and 36 measures of effect, that involved a total of 877,181 participants of whom 163,831 had experienced an abortion. The study took into account pre-existing mental health problems prior to the abortion.
“In order to avoid any allegations of bias,” Dr. Coleman explained, “very stringent inclusion criteria were employed. This means every strong study was included and weaker studies were excluded.
“Specifically, among the rules for inclusion were sample size of 100 or more participants, use of a comparison group, and employment of controls for variables that may confound the effects such as demographics, exposure to violence, prior history of mental health problems, etc.”
This makes Dr. Coleman’s study the most comprehensive of its kind to date.
“Given the methodological limitations of recently published qualitative reviews of abortion and mental health, a quantitative synthesis was deemed necessary to represent more accurately the published literature and to provide clarity to clinicians” Dr. Coleman stated in the report.
She said her research was focused on offering “the largest quantitative estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature.” This, she said, would give health care practitioners “an accurate synopsis of the best available evidence in order to provide women with valid information in order to make informed health care decisions.”
The research revealed that abortion was associated with a 34% increased risk for anxiety disorders; 37% greater risk of depression; 110% greater risk of alcohol abuse and 220% greater risk of marijuana use/abuse.
Abortion was also linked with a 155% greater risk of attempting to commit suicide.
“The strongest subgroup estimates of increased risk occurred when abortion was compared with term pregnancy and when the outcomes pertained to substance use and suicidal behavior,” Dr. Coleman observed.
“Calling into question the conclusions from traditional reviews,” the report concluded, “the results revealed a moderate to highly increased risk of mental health problems after abortion. Consistent with the tenets of evidence-based medicine, this information should inform the delivery of abortion services.”
Commenting on the results of the study, Pro Life Campaign of Ireland spokesperson, Dr. Ruth Cullen said, “These findings are extremely disturbing and completely undermine pro-choice claims that abortion alleviates mental health problems. In fact, the study further proves that the opposite is the case.”
“These findings cannot be ignored,” Dr. Cullen stated. “They raise very serious issues for everyone regardless of which side they are one in the abortion debate. The best interests of women can only be served by an honest and dispassionate appraisal of the facts.”
Dr. Mary L. Davenport, president of the American Association of ProLife Obstetricians and Gynecologists and medical director of Nigeria’s Magnificat Maternal Health Project, said the study, “sheds important light on the mental health of women,” and exposes the “egregious cover-up of abortion complications” that are an aspect of “the abortion distortion.”
“This review, which is larger than any study to date, contradicts the recent and biased and less systematic review by the American Psychological Association, which fails to find a relationship between mental health problems and abortion,” Dr. Davenport wrote today in the American Thinker.
“The new meta-analysis also contradicts the stance of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which has been silent on the mental health impact of abortion in its official publications despite overwhelming evidence over the last two decades of abortion’s adverse effects.”
“By so powerfully linking abortion to mental health problems, the Coleman study helps us comprehend the magnitude of the damage done to entire nations by reckless, permissive abortion policies,” Dr. Davenport concluded.
An abstract of the study titled “Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995–2009” with links to the full text is available on the British Journal of Psychiatry website here -- http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/199/3/180.abstract?sid=f3a640ac-1664-489e-9f34-2ecc688a6d52
[Sep 01, 2011, T. Baklinski, London, UK, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/largest-ever-study-finds-abortion-increases-risk-of-severe-mental-health-pr?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=aab8f55fe0-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines089_01_2011&utm_medium=email ]
Mainstream Media Ignores Report on How Abortion Businesses Target Minorities
It’s no secret that the establishment press continues to serve as a virtual PR mouthpiece for Planned Parenthood. Among the canards employed in its defense is that the organization provides a wondrous array of reproductive health services.
Abby Johnson, a former Texas facility director for the organization and others have shown that abortion constitutes 98% of such “services,” and that taxpayer funds which aren’t supposed to pay for abortions are routinely “combined into one pot, not set aside for specific services.”
For several years, Life Dynamics Incorporated has documented an even more sinister aspect of Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry which its press defenders steadfastly refuse to call out, namely that it takes the lives of a disproportionate number of pre-born African-American and Hispanic babies. A new study by LDI (“Racial Targeting and Population Control”) shows that this result is no accident, as, in LDI’s words, “family planning” clinics “are disproportionately placed into minority neighborhoods” (full PDF report; HT Life News; bolds are mine throughout; internal link added by me):
.. as far back as the mid 1900s, some well-known eugenicists were arguing that the most effective way they could advance their agenda would be to concentrate population control facilities within the targeted (minority and primarily African-American) communities…. In Maafa 21 (a 2009 documentary — Ed.), evidence is presented that Planned Parenthood and others within the abortion and family planning lobby took this approach when choosing locations for their facilities and that this practice continues to this day.
… For years, these people have consistently argued that the most effective way to reduce the number of abortions is to prevent unplanned pregnancies by making birth control chemicals, devices and information widely available.
This is why, until fairly recently, Planned Parenthood and so-called “family planning” advocates have acknowledged that they have placed locations “where the need is” in minority communities.
Forty years after Roe v. Wade, it should clear that the formerly acknowledged strategy has done nothing but keep the pipeline of preborn babies eligible to be exterminated filled:
… in contemporary America, the rate of pregnancy among black women is almost three times as high as it is for white women and, though they make up less than 13% of the female population, black women have about 37% of the abortions. In other words, the family planning lobby’s argument that they concentrate their facilities in minority communities because that is where the need is, cannot be reconciled with their long espoused claim about the connection between contraception, pregnancy and abortion.
Exactly — which is why the abortion industry is denying it ever said what it formerly freely admitted:
Seeing that they had painted themselves into this corner, their options were to either abandon the assertion that contraception is the way to reduce abortion rates, or reverse field and start denying that their facilities are disproportionately placed into minority neighborhoods.
They chose the latter.
Virtually overnight, they went from claiming that they target minority communities with noble intentions to claiming that they don’t target them at all. Then, to support this revised strategy, they began quoting a new report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) showing that only one in 10 Planned Parenthood clinics is located in a minority community.
The LDI study blows Guttmacher’s contention to bits. LDI developed databases of all Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities in the country, their zip codes, and each zip code’s minority (black and/or Hispanic) component. Here is some of what it found:
The numbers are staggering. As just one example, consider Texas which has 94 Zip codes with at least one population control facility. Of those, only 22 are not disproportionately black and/or Hispanic. (In other words, 72, or 77% are. — Ed.)
As the charts demonstrate, similar patterns are found across the country and they do not vary appreciably by the size of the state. In Connecticut – a state thoroughly dissimilar from Texas in size, culture and geography – there are 21 Zip codes in which population control facilities are located and only six are not disproportionately black and/or Hispanic.
… (Frequently) there are multiple facilities in disproportionately minority ZIP codes. For example, in New Jersey, ZIP code 07631 has a black population 286.7% of the state’s overall percentage and a Hispanic population 163.9% of the state. That ZIP code alone has four population control facilities. Similarly, Minnesota ZIP code 55404 has a black population that is 797.1% of the overall state percentage and a Hispanic population 537.9% of the state. In that ZIP code there are three population control centers.
Again, this pattern is repeated in state after state. We identified 116 ZIP codes with more than one population control facility. Of those, 84 were disproportionately black and/or Hispanic. What this means is that, when the American family planning industry places multiple facilities in a ZIP code, that ZIP code is more than two-and-a-half times as likely to be disproportionately minority as not.
… In the end, this data speaks for itself and does not require a lot of analysis. The numbers make it clear that the African-American and Hispanic communities have been targeted and logic makes it clear that this did not happen coincidentally or unintentionally.
The data does speak for itself if one takes the time to look through all of it. Maybe it’s because I’m a numbers guy, but I would have been more impressed with the study’s write-up if it had compiled state-by-state and national summaries of the results into a one- or two-page fact sheet. In the current media culture, it helps to have things in a form which can be virtually copied and pasted by reporters, because they normally won’t take the time to pull anything together on their own — especially on a topic which might upset their ideological applecart.
That said, what Life Dynamics has found is explosive enough that there really is no excuse for its findings to be ignored. But, as one would expect, they have been.
It will surprise no one that searches on “abortion” at the Associated Press’s main site and the New York Times returned nothing referring to the Life Dynamics study. A Google News search on “Life Dynamics” (in quotes, sorted by date) returns six results, none of them establishment press outlets.
By contrast, as the study notes, there was extensive media coverage during the 1980s and 1990s of research purporting to show how minorities were targeted by tobacco and alcohol companies. The press has jumped to the defense of minority victims — some legitimate, many not — in these and so many other areas. So what, other than ideological self-defense, explains the silence in the face of clear evidence of life-taking industry targeting by a group which used to brag about what it was doing but now pretends it isn’t happening?
LifeNews.com Note: Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters, the conservative blog where this first appeared.
[Tom Blumer, DC, LifeNews.com | 9/5/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/05/media-ignores-report-on-how-abortion-clinics-target-minorities/]
Troubled Abortionist Convicted of Credit Card Fraud Admits Lying to Gain Licensure in Utah
A Utah abortionist has admitted that she lied to state officials about a criminal conviction and incarceration for credit card fraud in order to be able to perform abortions in that state, reports Operation Rescue.
Abortionist Nicola Riley
Abortionist Nicola Riley is best known for her involvement, along with the notorious Steven Chase Brigham, in a botched late-term abortion at a secret abortion clinic in Elkton, Maryland, last year. Riley’s Maryland license has been suspended.
As part of a recent settlement agreement with the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL), Riley reportedly admitted her deception and must now pay a fine of $10,000 to be paid over 18 months. The group says she also has three months to write and submit an essay to DOPL describing how her unprofessional conduct has affected her patients and her profession.
“While we are happy that the DOPL acted to discipline Riley for lying, we are disappointed in the relatively light punishment considering the seriousness of the offense,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “This sounds more like a school detention assignment than discipline for lying to obtain a medical license. Other states have taken her deception much more seriously.”
Operation Rescue had conducted research on Riley and discovered she had a criminal conviction during her service in the U.S. Army. The group says they received a copy of her criminal record through an open records request and discovered that she had grossly misrepresented her involvement in a credit card/identity theft ring on her medical license applications in the states of Maryland, Wyoming, and Utah.
On those applications she stated that she served one year at Ft. Leavenworth Military Prison for not quickly reporting the credit card fraud that was being perpetrated by her subordinates. In truth, says Operation Rescue, Riley herself fraudulently obtained credit cards, which she used for large purchases, by using personal information stolen during her military duties.
Riley served 30 months in prison for her crimes.
Operation Rescue forwarded the documents to medical oversight boards in all three states where Riley held licenses. Maryland has filed formal charges against Riley for lying on her medical license application. Wyoming forced Riley to surrender her license there or face revocation hearings. Utah has barred Riley from doing abortions but so far has allowed her to keep her license pending the outcome of the Maryland disciplinary action.
“Riley’s entire medical career is based on a lie. Riley broke a sacred trust that makes her completely unfit for the practice of medicine. A doctor that cannot be trusted to tell the truth cannot be trusted at all,” said Newman.
[Sep 01, 2011, Kathleen Gilbert, Salt Lake City, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/troubled-abortionist-convicted-of-credit-card-fraud-admits-lying-to-gain-li?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=aab8f55fe0-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines089_01_2011&utm_medium=email ]
Two Planned Parenthood Abortion Workers Quit
Two Planned Parenthood abortion center workers have left their jobs this week, according to former Planned Parenthood Director Abby Johnson. Johnson posted the good news yesterday on her Facebook page.
Abby Johnson posted the good news about the abortion workers yesterday on her Facebook page.
“I can’t tell you anything about the people that have left their jobs,” Johnson told LifeSiteNews. “They are very vulnerable because if Planned Parenthood knew that they left and were getting help from me, Planned Parenthood could go after them like they did me.”
Planned Parenthood was granted a temporary restraining order against Johnson and the Christian pro-life organization Coalition for Life after Abby’s resignation in 2009. The order was lifted by a court a week later.
The former Planned Parenthood Director confessed that she is “never really surprised” when she is contacted by abortion workers who want to leave.
“They’re working in a place that is evil and difficult to work in,” she said. “From my own experience, you can see a physical difference in their appearance, in their face, when they’re at a clinic [sic] and when they leave. It is an honor to get them out of a place that is so terrible.”
Johnson said that pro-lifers could do two things to support the clinic workers.
“Everyone can pray for them … They have taken a huge leap of faith,” she said, emphasizing that both workers have children to support.
She also said that pro-lifers should consider extending their financial generosity to abortion workers who are out of work because they have chosen to quit.
“We can’t just say we’re pro-life for women,” she said. “These clinic [sic] workers are suffering in a way the general public will never understand. Both are in need of employment, one in Santa Clara, California and the other in Travis County, Texas.”
Johnson said that she is trying to raise money for the workers so that they can stay afloat while they search for other employment, and that related information will soon be available on her Facebook page and on her website.
“People need to know that these are not the first two clinic [sic] workers to leave and they won’t be the last two,” Johnson concluded.
[Sep 01, 2011, Jeremy Kryn, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/two-planned-parenthood-abortion-workers-quit-this-week?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=aab8f55fe0-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines089_01_2011&utm_medium=email ]
Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS) Continues to Expand its Abortion Killing into Rochester, Minnesota
The PPMNS Rochester "feeder" clinic has begun committing chemical abortions (commonly known as RU-486 abortions). This is the first-time that PPMNS, in Minnesota, is known to be committing abortions outside of its Saint Paul, Minn. abortion business.
This comes on the heels of the construction of its mega facility where the doubling of abortions will be attainable, the expansion of abortions into the second trimester (up to 17 weeks) at its Highland Park mill, and increasing the number of abortions to a new record high of 4,033 in 2010.
The latest Minnesota Department of Health report reveals that abortions have continued to decline in Minnesota to the lowest levels since 1975 (11,505 in calendar year 2010.) PPMNS was the only abortion provider to increase its number of abortions, and this is the eleventh straight year of increases for PPMNS.
Meanwhile, another Planned Parenthood facility has closed in Texas.
[1 Sept 11, Pro-Life Action Ministries]
Latest Abortion Statistics for Louisiana and for the USA (as of August 2011)
Comment For Louisiana -- the abortion-for-rape-or-incest rate in Louisiana is fewer than 0.004%, there having been only four (4) reported for this reason (out of the last 103,521 done) during the last 11 years, and that abortions in our state have risen by almost 43% since our post-Katrina/Rita nadir in 2006. Also, that Caddo, Orleans and East Baton Rouge parish facilities do the great majority of all abortions in the Pelican State.
Due to Hurricanes Katrina & Rita in 2005, plus the resultant closure of the Orleans parish abortion facility, there was a dramatic drop in Louisiana abortions reported, first to 8,860 for 2005 (21% reduction), then to 6,204 in 2006 (30% further reduction), with a subsequent 'stabilization' at just over 6,800 (2007-8). Orleans parish, with the highest state abortion numbers in 2004, gave way to Caddo and Jefferson parishes in 2005, then to Caddo and East Baton Rouge. In 2009 (latest available), Caddo Parish reported 3,385 abortions (41% of total) while recently re-opened Orleans Parish facilities resurged to 1,996 (24%).
Overall, teen mothers procured 17% of all abortions.
Of particular note is the virtual absence of rape/incest as the reason given for the abortion; a total of FOUR abortions for rape were reported from 1999-2009, for a rate of fewer than 0.004% among the 103,521 aborted for all other reasons during those 11 years.
The latest-available statistics for Louisiana for 2009 depressingly show that Katrina/Rita-caused reductions in abortions in our state have come to an end. In fact, DHH figures show a resurgence of 19% from 2008-2009, i.e. to 8,167, while preliminary figures for 2010 showed a further increase to 8,867 (almost 43%), from the 2006 level; however, as is the norm, none (0) were reported for rape or incest after 2005 (when one was so reported) from 2006 through 2009.
For the U.S.A. The number of abortions reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) during 2007 (last available), and corrected for California's refusal to report abortion data (24% of total, with several other states' minor contributions), was 1,026,236. This is 29,158 (2.8%) fewer than the 1,055,394 reported for 2006.
However, taking a five-year average of such CDC statistics for the period, 2003-2007, the mean national abortion tally for the U.S. was 1,065,767 per year. When corrected further by the CDC's own estimate of at least 11% under-reporting, that tally grows to 1,183,000 per year, i.e. 3,241 per day, 135 per hour, or one abortion every 26 seconds.
Since 1973, over 53,000,000 abortions have been done in the U.S.A. Just under one of every five U.S. children conceived is being killed!
Blacks had a 3-fold greater national abortion rate than Whites, and Hispanics, 1.3 times greater.
Put another way: nationally, of Black children conceived, 1 in 3 is aborted; of non-White, non-Hispanic, 1 in 4; of all U.S. children, 1 in 5; of Hispanic, 1 in 6; and of White children, 1 in 7.
Also, of abortions done nationally, 1.4%, or 14,502 per year, were done with the unborn baby 5 months or older, i.e. after “quickening.”
And maternal deaths due to “legal” abortion outnumber those due to illegal abortion by 3.6 to 1.
[August 2011, The Hippocratic Resource, Resource Roundup, vol. 11, nos.8-9]
A new reported issued by the pro-life group Life Dynamics proves that Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry in the United States target black and Hispanic Americans by placing abortion facilities in communities with high minority populations.
Titled, “Racial Targeting and Population Control,” the new report validates the claims pro-life advocates have made for years — and that Life Dynamics made in its groundbreaking Maafa21 video released two years ago — showing that abortion advocates have purposefully placed abortion centers in urban areas with high percentages of black and Hispanic residents.
Mark Crutcher and Carole Novielli conducted the research in the 24-page report and they say the location of abortion centers is the modern equivalent of the population control policies against minorities, especially African-Americans, that Planned Parenthood has supported since Margaret Sanger founded it. The researchers say they prepared the new report to respond to the criticism of the claims abortion advocates have made to the racial charges — and to point out a hypocrisy.
“The initial response to this documentary from people defending these organizations was to claim that they focus their facilities on minority neighborhoods because that is where the need is,” they write. “Almost immediately, however, they saw that this argument was creating a problem for them. Simply put, it is incompatible with one of their other arguments.”
Abortion advocates have always claimed that their main goal is to reduce unintended pregnancies and, by placing abortion centers and Planned Parenthood clinics in minority communities, abortion backers claimed their focus wasn’t promoting abortions to blacks and Hispanics but to help them reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies by promoting birth control and contraception.
“If that is true, in light of their concession that they have focused these things on the minority community, the obvious result should be that black women have the lowest pregnancy and abortion rates in the country,” they researchers write. Yet, a new study released by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, a former Planned Parenthood research affiliate, shows birth control and contraception are not reducing abortions and unplanned pregnancies, especially in lower income minority areas.
“But to the contrary, in contemporary America, the rate of pregnancy among black women is almost three times as high as it is for white women and, though they make up less than 13% of the female population, black women have about 37% of the abortions,” the researchers write.
With that statistic in mind, the researchers set forth with the goal of mapping every abortion facility and Planned Parenthood center in the nation against population and racial demographic data sorted by zip code. They wanted to determine not only whether abortion centers were located in zip codes with high black and Hispanic populations but whether the black and Hispanic populations in the zip codes where abortion businesses were located exceeded the total percentage of the population of the particular state as a whole in terms of its minority population.
“We began by creating a database of the ZIP codes for every Planned Parenthood facility in the United States. This list was generated from Planned Parenthood’s website. We then used United States Census Bureau figures to establish the percentage of black and Hispanic people residing within each of these ZIP codes as well as within each state,” they write.
“In reviewing this data, there are several things to keep in mind. The first is that the issue is not whether a ZIP code is predominately black or Hispanic but whether it is disproportionately black or Hispanic.”
The results were startling.
In Texas alone, 94 zip codes show either an abortion facility or a Planned parenthood abortion-referral clinic located there and 72 percent of the zip codes have populations that are disproportionately black and/or Hispanic.
The report also found multiple abortion centers in many super-minority populated areas. The New Jersey zip code 07631 has a black population 286.7% of the state’s overall percentage and a Hispanic population 163.9% of the state, they noted, and it has four abortion or abortion-referral centers.
Minnesota zip code 55404 has a black population that is 797.1% of the overall state percentage and a Hispanic population 537.9% of the state and there are three abortion or abortion-referral clinics [sic] there.
The racial targeting is not limited to certain regions of the country. In Connecticut – a state thoroughly dissimilar from Texas in size, culture and geography – there are 21 zip codes where abortion centers or Planned Parenthood abortion-referral clinics are located and 15 of them have disproportionately black and/or Hispanic populations.
“Again, this pattern is repeated in state after state,” the researchers noted. “We identified 116 ZIP codes with more than one [abortion or abortion-referral facility]. Of those, 84 were disproportionately black and/or Hispanic. What this means is that, when the American family planning industry places multiple facilities in a ZIP code, that ZIP code is more than two-and-a-half times as likely to be disproportionately minority as not.”
“What we now know – and have documented – is that there is not one state in the union without [abortion] centers located in ZIP codes with higher percentages of blacks and/or Hispanics than the state’s overall percentage. In fact, Hawaii is the only state that does not have facilities located in ZIP codes exceeding 125% of their overall percentage,” they write.
“Not only is this racial targeting widespread, it’s scale is often enormous. We found 42 states with family planning facilities in ZIP codes where the black and/or Hispanic populations exceeds 200% of the state’s overall percentage. More telling is that these percentages routinely go far beyond even this level. Numerous states have facilities in ZIP codes that range from 250% to well over 1,000% and it is not uncommon for them to have facilities located in many such ZIP codes.”
“In the end, this data speaks for itself and does not require a lot of analysis. The numbers make it clear that the African-American and Hispanic communities have been targeted and logic makes it clear that this did not happen coincidentally or unintentionally,” they concluded.
[Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/29/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/29/report-proves-planned-parenthood-targets-blacks-hispanics/
The Unholy Alliance Between Some Adoption Agencies and Abortion
There are some things in life that are just painfully oxymoronic. Political correctness. Government transparency. NPR fairness. Bureaucratic efficiencies. And one of the examples most disturbing to me: “pro-choice” adoption agencies.
New York based Spence-Chapin is such an agency. Specializing in newborn adoptions, this pro-abortion adoption agency staunchly supports the nation’s largest abortion chain. They agree with Planned Parenthood’s warped philosophy that “unintended” equals “unwanted” equals “unloved”.Yet they place 66 children a year that are, according to Planned Parenthood, “unwanted”.
One can’t dispel a myth by supporting the lie. Spence-Chapin recently launched an effort to try to claim the adoption mantle called the Adoption Access Network, a coalition of pro-abortion adoption agencies. Unlike Bethany Christian Services, the nation’s largest adoption agency and champion of the belief that “every life a promise”, the Adoption Access Network gives death by abortion and the option of adoption the same moral equivalence. A child’s chances of survival are just a lot better with agencies like Bethany that fully support life.
The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), too, operates in an unholy alliance of abortion and adoption. Despite the assertion that they exist to “provide all children with a chance to thrive and success as part of a family”, their advocacy of abortion prevents millions from being given any chance to live, let alone thrive. Linda Spears, CWLA’s Vice President of Policy and Public Affairs, was directly asked about the glaring contradiction, and she responded:
“We have relationships and partnerships with many different organizations that help vulnerable children succeed. That does not mean we agree (or disagree) with every position or opinion of these organizations.”
So, by aborting children, Planned Parenthood helps vulnerable children succeed? Her evasive and odd response revealed her inability to defend the indefensible. Abortion is not a position or an opinion taken by Planned Parenthood. It’s an action: one that generates over $200 million dollars in revenue for the nonprofit organization...
There can never be harmony between child welfare agencies and the purveyors of abortion. Don’t be fooled by their methods of mass distraction. Pro-abortion adoption agencies are as duplicitous as the Democrat party’s claim to the civil rights mantle. “Pro-choice, pro-child” mantras from “pro-choice” adoption agencies are about as ridiculous as Democrats in 1865, fighting the 13th Amendment, claiming “pro-slavery, pro-slave!” In both cases, the obvious oxymorons are simply incompatible.
For remainder of the article, visit http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/30/the-unholy-alliance-between-some-adoption-agencies-and-abortion/ Ryan Bomberger, LifeNews.com, 8/30/11
Report: Susan G. Komen Donated Over $600,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2009-2010
[ED. Would we just smile if we knew that Komen donated to the Tobacco Industry? Where is the outrage??]
Even as scientific evidence connecting breast cancer to abortion and the use of the oral contraceptive pill continues to mount, one breast cancer cure charity, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, is funding the abortion giant Planned Parenthood to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a new report.
Stop Planned Parenthood (STOPP), a project of the American Life League dedicated to shutting down Planned Parenthood, released a report on August 24 detailing the $629,159 in funding various Komen affiliates contributed directly to Planned Parenthood affiliates across the US in 2009-2010, according to the 990 Forms Komen submitted to the IRS for those years.
While Komen has repeatedly denied the abortion-breast cancer link, numerous researchers say that the evidence is already overwhelming.
The issue arose as early as 1994 when Dr. Janet Daling, a pro-choice cancer researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, found a connection between abortion and breast cancer.
Dr. Daling’s findings, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, revealed that women under age 18 who had an induced abortion had an increased breast cancer risk of 150%. Overall, she found, women who have an induced abortion have an increased breast cancer risk of 50%.
“I would have loved to have found no association between breast cancer and abortion,” Dr. Daling wrote, “but our research is rock solid, and our data is accurate. It’s not a matter of believing. It’s a matter of what is.”
Numerous other studies since then have corroborated her findings.
In July of this year Karen Malec of the Coalition of Abortion/Breast Cancer criticized Komen for fundraising to find a cure for breast cancer, and then giving the money to Planned Parenthood which, in her words, “is the primary cause of the breast cancer epidemic.”
“It’s more than ironic that Planned Parenthood receives contributions from an organization allegedly dedicated to the eradication of breast cancer,” Malec said. “Abortion and the birth control pill – which Planned Parenthood sells – are risk factors for the disease. It’s certainly bad for business to tell women the truth about the abortion-breast cancer link. Knowledge of that risk would cause some to turn their backs on induced abortion and cut into Planned Parenthood’s profits.”
Malec also noted that, according to Komen’s 990 Forms submitted to the IRS for 2010, the charity gave millions to at least five research and educational facilities that engage in embryonic stem cell research, research that has yet to provide even a single positive treatment or cure for any disease, yet involves the destruction of countless unborn children.
“Komen’s Parent Return for 2010 shows that millions of dollars in grants were given to research facilities that have policies supporting experiments on human embryos,” Malec said.
[Aug 26, 2011, T. Baklinski, Stafford, VA, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/report-susan-g-komen-donated-over-600000-to-planned-parenthood-in-2009-201?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5a583ac3c0-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines08_25_2011&utm_medium=email
TX Planned Parenthood Closes ... Former Manager Speaks Out
On August 23, 2011, Planned Parenthood in Sherman closed its doors. Four months earlier, former manager Ramona Trevino resigned her post at Planned Parenthood and is now speaking out about her pro-life conversion and resulting exodus from the organization responsible
for the most abortions in the United States.
Trevino explains that although this particular Planned Parenthood did not perform surgical abortions, she was struggling "with [her] conscience . . . on contraception, abortion and [her] role in it all." Trevino found her answer when 40 Days for Life came to Sherman.
40 Days for Life (http://www.40daysforlife.com) is an international pro-life campaign that focuses on 40 days of prayer and fasting, 40 days
of peaceful vigil at abortion provider or referral facilities, and 40 days of grassroots educational outreach. Beginning last March, Texoma Pro-Life Association (http://texomaprolife.org/) sponsored a 40 Days for Life prayer vigil for the first time outside the Sherman Planned Parenthood.
ON AUGUST 28, there will be a rally at the public right-of-way IN FRONT OF THE FORMER SHERMAN PLANNED PARENTHOOD (2114 Texoma Pkwy) from 2:00 TO 3:00 P.M. to commemorate the closing of the facility. "We want to bring pro-life members of the Sherman community together to reflect upon the blessings received during our 40 Days for Life campaign . . . to rejoice in the victories that God has accomplished, said Gerry Brundage, spokesperson for the Sherman 40 Days for Life campaign.
DAVID BEREIT, NATIONAL DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER OF 40 DAYS FOR LIFE, will be a guest speaker at the rally, as will FORMER MANAGER RAMONA TREVINO. Trevino will share her journey from believing she was providing a service to women in need to realizing that Planned Parenthood "treated women like cattle and how they only cared about making money", a realization she says was "long overdue."
In addition to her Sherman appearance, Trevino will also be the keynote speaker at the 40 Days for Life-Dallas Kickoff Rally on SEPTEMBER 27 in Dallas. Beginning at midnight, Dallas will join over 300 cities worldwide in the Fall 40 Days for Life campaign through November 6,
including a 24/7 peaceful, prayer vigil outside the Southwestern late-term abortion center. To learn more about the 40 Days for Life-Dallas campaign, visit: www.40daysforlife.com/dallas
[24 August 11, Dallas, Texas, press release, http://www.40daysforlife.com/dallas
Abortion Business in Pensacola Closes
One of the two abortion clinics in Pensacola, FL,has just closed (last day of abortions 8/5/11). The AMS clinic's web site is also shut down. We found out that there is a law suit between the AMS abortion clinic and DIONE PRO, INC over non-payment of mortgage payments. The abortionist owns AMS and is listed as president of DIONE PRO, INC. by Dunn and Bradstreet.
The Escambia County Sheriff has taken possession of the AMS abortion clinic located at 6115 Village Oaks Dr. Pensacola, FL, and has ordered the building be vacated. Anyone reentering will be guilty of a criminal violation and be subject to arrest as of August 15, 2011. A writ of possession to the Sheriff was issued by Judge Pat Kinsey, Division V Court Room on 8/15/11. This action may be the result of a law suit DIONE PRO INC. vs. AMS OF PENSACOLA. Below is a the text of a notice placed on all doors by the Escambia County Sheriff.
ESCAMBIA COUNTY SHERIFF OFFICE Notice of possession
This is to give notice on this date ECSO Civil Division has taken immediate possession of the proscribed property in Escambia County Florida at 6115 Village Oaks Drive 32524. And put plaintiff agent in possession of same this 15th day of August 2011. Case # 2011 CC 002472 in the case styled DIONE PRO INC. a Florida Corporation. Plaintiff vs AMS of Pensacola. All vacate without delay. If you reenter you are guilty of criminal violation & subject to arrest. Contact Moore Hill & Westmorland PA Attorney for the Plaintiff. 8/18/11@ 1253
[email message, 21 Aug 11; Related -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/22/abortion-business-in-pensacola-florida-shuts-down/]
Tenth Texas Abortion Practitioner Under State Investigation
A tenth abortion practitioner in Texas is now under state investigation following an undercover sting operation showing abortion centers in the Lone Star State breaking numerous Texas laws concerning abortions and engaging in illegal dumping of patient records and medical waste.
Operation Rescue, which conducted the undercover investigation with Survivors, has been notified that Franz C. Theard will face a disciplinary hearing later this year before the Texas Medical Board based on a complaint the pro-life group filed. Theard will face an Informal Settlement Conference/Show of Compliance (ISC) hearing on October 28.
Theard is an El Paso abortion practitioner who also runs an abortion center just over the state border in New Mexico. Operation Rescue recorded one of Theard’s employees coaching a caller who claimed to be a minor seeking an abortion, to cross state lines to avoid having to comply with the Texas parental notification law.
The caller posed as a 17-year old minor who wanted an abortion and the receptionist quickly scheduled an abortion for her for the following Saturday at 9:00 am and told her to bring and I.D. and $460. Then the abortion center staff helps the caller evade Texas law....
[see original article for this call]
Lupa then assures the caller that she will see Dr. Theard and that she does not need to tell her parents.
“Santa Teresa is a community across state lines from El Paso in New Mexico, where abortion laws are essentially non-existent,” Operation Rescue president Troy Newman says. “It has become obvious that Theard keeps this clinic [sic] open for the purpose of circumventing Texas abortion laws that require minors must have the consent of their parents before abortions can be done.”
“If encouraging a minor to cross state lines to evade the laws of her home state isn’t illegal, it ought to be,” said Newman. “Those laws were enacted to protect young girls and to protect the integrity of the family and parental rights. Theard is openly defying the intent of the Texas legislature and trampling the rights of parents while profiting off the vulnerability of their underage daughters. It’s really quite despicable.”
The people involved in the undercover investigation also discovered the remains of unborn children victimized by abortions left in the parking lot outside Theard’s El Paso abortion clinic earlier this year. That incident was also reported to the Medical Board by Operation Rescue.
“Theard and the other abortionists have played fast and loose with the law for far too long. Their actions have endangered women, created public health hazards, and misled young women into having preventable abortions,” said OR president Troy Newman. “We look forward to seeing them held accountable to the law.”
“The results have shaken the abortion cartel in Texas. So far, two abortion clinics [sic], Whole Women’s Health in Austin and McAllen have been cited for illegal dumping of aborted baby remains and a total of ten abortionists must face ISC hearings to determine what discipline, if any, they should face for violations that have not been made public by the Board,” Newman continued. “Hearings for all ten abortionists will take place on the same day and are scheduled a half hour apart.”
“This will be a day of reckoning for abortionists in Texas and will send the strong message that they are not above the law,” he said.
The other abortion practitioners who face disciplinary hearings include William Watkins West, Jr., Robert E. Hanson, Jr., Pedro J. Kowalyszyn, Sherwood C. Lynn, Margaret Kini, Alan Molson, Robert L. Prince, Douglas Karpen, and H. Brook Randal.
The group filed complaints with the Texas Medical Board against twelve abortion practitioners for violations it discovered.
As a further result of the Operation Rescue investigation, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) verified health code violations — including the illegal disposal of the remains of aborted babies — occurred at Whole Women’s Health abortion businesses in McAllen and Austin and has cited the centers for them.
Whole Women’s Health is affiliated with the National Abortion Federation, a scandal-plagued national association of abortion businesses found to be among the worst in the nation in complying with even the most basic health and safety standards.
The allegations against the abortion practitioners range from mishandling private patient medical records and information, violating informed consent laws, disregarding the 24-hour waiting period, improper disposal of biohazardous medical waste, including human tissue, instructing minors to cross state lines to avoid Texas parental notification laws, and mishandling of drugs and prescription forms.
Kini, Molson, and Randal are affiliated with the Whole Women’s Health abortion business, which have already been cited by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for the improper disposal of the remains of babies victimized by abortions. Prince and Karpen are affiliated with the Northpark Medical Group abortion business in Dallas, OR says, and Molson also has an affiliation with this clinic as well as Whole Women’s Health.
[Ertelt | Austin, TX | LifeNews.com | 8/24/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/24/tenth-texas-abortion-practitioner-under-state-investigation/
Virginia Releases Regulations, Could Shut Abortion Centers
The Virginia state health department today released a draft of new regulations for abortion centers that pro-abortion groups are aggressively opposing because it could force some abortion facilities that put women’s health at risk to close.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell signed a bill earlier this year that required abortion businesses in the state to follow better health and safety standards. Abortion advocates strongly contested the legislation and mounted a campaign attempting to get McDonnell to veto the bill by claiming it would shut down as many as 17 of the 20 abortion businesses in the state. But pro-life advocates countered saying if they were shut down it was because they couldn’t meet basic health standards to ensure the safety of women and protect their health.
Abortion centers in Virginia have not been subject to strict regulations for more than 20 years. The new bill the legislature approved will make sure abortion businesses are regulated as hospitals instead of physician’s offices, a move that will protect women’s health, reduce abortions, and could cause problematic abortion centers to close. The legislation gave the state’s Board of Health 280 days to write new rules for abortion businesses.
Now, the Virginia Department of Health released the temporary emergency regulations, which the State Board of Health will vote on at a September 15 hearing. They will remain in place while the state drafts more permanent regulations through the typical process...
However, a collection of pro-abortion groups have been steadfastly opposing the regulations and calling on their members to tell the state officials to not adopt them. The state Board of Health has eight members selected by McDonnell, who is pro-life, and six were appointed or reappointed by his Democratic predecessor, Tim Kaine, who backs abortion. Should the board adopt the rules, the state Attorney General, pro-life advocate Ken Cuccinelli, would review them along with the Department of Planning and Budget, Health and Human Services, and the governor’s office.
Specifically, the bill says “facilities in which five or more first-trimester abortions per month are performed” are now part to the category of “hospital” facilities and that would require abortion centers to abide by the same standards as legitimate outpatient surgical centers instead of only complying to the standards for doctors’ officers where surgeries are not performed...
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council also praised passage of the legislation.
“If we cannot accept sub-standard care that would jeopardize women’s health in other areas, such as post-natal care, we cannot accept it from abortion clinics [sic],” he said. “Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s practice is an example of what can happen in states where basic standards are not enforced by health authorities. Gosnell’s grisly practice of killing infants and tormenting women will stand as one of the most horrific discoveries in Pennsylvania state history. This millionaire doctor raked in $15,000 a day – more than enough money to afford clean equipment and a trained staff. But, like so much of the abortion industry, his business wasn’t about caring for women or vaccinating children. It was about profit.”
Last year, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli... said in an opinion that the state government can institute the regulations by executive order but McDonnell said he wanted the legislature to put the regulations in place. In his opinion, Cuccinelli provided legal guidance for the state Board of Health and said more limits can be placed on abortion businesses in Virginia when it comes to healthy and safety standards.
Noting that Roe v. Wade still allows virtually unlimited legal abortions, the attorney general said the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision allowing limits in other states makes it so Virginia limits would likely be seen as constitutional. The key is making abortion businesses meet the same standards as legitimate outpatient medical facilities and those limits could close some abortion centers that do not follow current state guidelines.
Under current law, abortion practitioners must be licensed by the state Board of Medicine, but abortion centers themselves are considered “physicians offices,” and don’t meet the same strict standards as surgical facilities doing legitimate medical procedures.
Virginia’s Department of Health had regulated abortion clinics [sic] until pro-abortion Chuck Robb became Governor and ended the practice.
Cuccinelli’s opinion is important because it gives the green light for the state legislature to pass bills putting abortion centers in the same category as ambulatory surgery centers and requires them to meet certain standards to protect women’s health. Failure to do so would see them close permanently or temporarily while deficiencies are corrected.
ACTION: Contact the Virginia Board of health at http://www.dhp.virginia.gov/about/contact.htm to support the abortion facility regulations.
[Ertelt | Richmond, VA | LifeNews.com | 8/26/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/26/virginia-releases-regulations-could-shut-abortion-centers/]
Abby Johnson: Abortion Business Workers Leaving Could Take Down Abortion
Abby Johnson, the former director of a Planned Parenthood abortion business in Texas, shared a message with thousands of pro-life advocates last night about how she thinks abortion can be stopped.
Johnson shared her ideas, according to Live Action’s Jewels Green, with more than 5,000 people who tuned in to a national webcast sponsored by 40 Days for Life and she explained how she thinks abortions can be stopped or, at least severely reduced, even within the confines of legalized abortion. With the day that the Supreme Court overturns Roe or upholds some sort of abortion ban or amendment protecting unborn children likely a long way off, webcast viewers were interested in hearing Johnson’s ideas.
Abby said she speaks regularly with people who are former workers at abortion centers or want to get out of the abortion industry and are looking for help to do so. She says she is in contact with such people on a weekly basis and she believes helping abortion staffers leave their jobs is the Achilles Heel for Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry and could be the key to stopping considerable numbers of abortions by closing down abortion centers via lack of staff.
“Planned Parenthood’s greatest fear is that clinic workers will leave and that they will come out against them and that they will air their dirty laundry, just like I did, and they will expose their secrets,” Johnson said.
She explained that the proof to that is in the lawsuit the Bryan, Texas Planned Parenthood abortion business filed against her seeking to silence her from revealing the secrets behind Planned Parenthood after she left the abortion business. Johnson ultimately won the lawsuit and is able to share information about her experiences and insight into Planned Parenthood operations.
Johnson and the 40 Days for Life officials cited another proof — the closing of a Planned Parenthood abortion business in Sherman, Texas that came about after the director of the abortion facility resigned.
Catherine Adair, a former Planned Parenthood staffer in Boston, spoke with Live Action after the webcast and said Johnson’s prevailing against the Planned Parenthood lawsuit prompted her to speak out about her own story of getting out of the abortion business.
“When Abby prevailed against Planned Parenthood in their lawsuit, I felt that maybe, just maybe, I could tell my story,” she said. “I now have the strength and courage to expose the horror I experienced behind the doors of the abortion clinic [sic].”
“We must be fully committed. As Abby said, pro-life is a round-the-clock commitment – everywhere, at every moment. You never know whose life you might touch. I always say someone was praying for me,” Adair added. “When I worked at Planned Parenthood, I never could have imagined there was life on the other side. I felt so alone and ashamed most of the time. I had nightmares and constant anxiety. I pray for clinic [sic] workers that they might be released from the agony of what they have to endure.”
Johnson said pro-life advocates must continue to pray, but she encouraged participants to be more active and do more — such as joining 40 Days for Life and having an active presence at abortion centers to encourage abortion facility workers to, like her, leave the industry.
[Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/24/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/24/abby-johnson-clinic-workers-leaving-could-take-down-abortion/
**** RELATED: Encourage Abortion Business Workers to Report Problems -- http://clinicworker.com/ ****
Fewer Doctors Willing to Do Abortions, Study Shows
A new study [http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Abstract/2011/09000/Abortion_Provision_Among_Practicing.16.aspx] provides more good news for pro-life advocates, as it shows fewer doctors are willing to perform abortions than before — creating a situation where the lower availability of abortion may be helping to reduce abortions.
The new report, published today in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, finds 97 percent of physicians surveyed say they have encountered patients wanting an abortion while only 14 percent of doctors are willing to do an abortion. That’s lower than the 22 percent of doctors who said they would do an abortion in the last poll, from 2008.
The researchers conducted a national probability sample mail survey of 1,800 practicing OBGYNs asking about “whether respondents ever encountered patients seeking abortions in their practice and whether they provided abortion services.” The results showed that demographics and religion play a big role in whether an OBGYN is willing to do abortions.
Women were much more likely than male doctors to say they would do an abortion (18.6 percent v. 10.6 percent); doctors aged 26-35 and 56-65 were more likely to say they would do abortions compared to those 36-45 and 46-55; and physicians in urban areas were more likely to say they would do an abortion compared with doctors in smaller cities and rural settings. Meanwhile, doctors in the Northeast or West are more likely to say they would do an abortion versus those in the South or Midwest.
Looking at religion, Jewish doctors were most likely to say they would do an abortion and those with no religion or of the Hindu religion were next most likely. Evangelical Christians were the most likely to not want to do abortions while Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and non-evangelical Protestants were next most likely to decline.
Some 40.2 percent of Jewish doctors say yes to doing an abortion compared to 1.2 percent of Evangelical Protestants, 9 percent of Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, 10.1 percent of Non-Evangelical Protestants, 20 percent of Hindus, and 26.5 percent of doctors who said they had no religious affiliation.
The study was based on a self-administered confidential survey sent to a sample of 1,800 OBGYNs practicing in the United States and 1,144 doctors responded. The survey did not ask about whether physicians who don’t do abortions themselves would refer women to someone who does.
A survey done in 2008 by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research organization previously affiliated with Planned Parenthood, found there were at least 1,787 abortion “doctors” in the United States but it revealed stark numbers when it comes to those who do abortions later in pregnancy. Of the 1,787, the study found that “[t]wenty percent of providers offered abortions after 20 weeks [LMP], and only 8% at 24 weeks [LMP].”
Though the numbers seem small, that translates to at least 300 “doctors” who will perform abortions after 20 weeks LMP and 140 willing to perform abortions at 24 weeks LMP.
A University of Chicago survey of 1,144 doctors around the country in February 2007 [http://www.lifenews.com/2007/02/08/nat-2919/] found 52 percent said they oppose abortion and others wouldn’t refer women considering an abortion to a place that does them...
The study found 14 percent of those surveyed do not believe they are required to tell a patient about all treatment options when it comes to morally objectionable procedures such as abortion. And 29 percent of physicians say they do not feel they must refer someone to another doctor for a treatment they oppose or were undecided.
Obstetrics & Gynecology:
September 2011 - Volume 118 - Issue 3 - p 609–614
doi: 10.1097/AOG.0b013e31822ad973
Abortion Provision Among Practicing Obstetrician–Gynecologists
OBJECTIVE: To estimate prevalence and correlates of abortion provision among practicing obstetrician–gynecologists (ob-gyns) in the United States.
METHODS: We conducted a national probability sample mail survey of 1,800 practicing ob-gyns. Key variables included whether respondents ever encountered patients seeking abortions in their practice and whether they provided abortion services. Correlates of providing abortion included physician demographic characteristics, religious affiliation, religiosity, and the religious affiliation of the facility in which a physician primarily practices.
RESULTS: Among practicing ob-gyns, 97% encountered patients seeking abortions, whereas 14% performed them. Female physicians were more likely to provide abortions than were male (18.6% compared with 10.6%, adjusted odds ratio 2.54, 95% confidence interval 1.57–4.08), as were those in the youngest age group, those in the Northeast or West, those in highly urban postal codes, and those who identify as being Jewish. Catholics, Evangelical Protestants, non-Evangelical Protestants, and physicians with high religious motivation were less likely to provide abortions.
CONCLUSION: The proportion of U.S. ob-gyns who provide abortions may be lower than estimated in previous research. Access to abortion remains limited by the willingness of physicians to provide abortion services, particularly in rural communities and in the South and Midwest.
[Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/23/11 http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/23/fewer-doctors-willing-to-do-abortions-new-study-shows/
Commentary: Pink Ribbons Not Cute When Komen Backs Planned Parenthood
by Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood Director in College Station, TX
Pink ribbons are cute. They have become very trendy. Everyone has caught on to them, too. A couple of airlines wear pink during October…some yogurt companies have pink ribbons on their merchandise…everyone is doing it. Well, not me.
I hate breast cancer. I REALLY hate it. Breast cancer stole one of the most important people in my life from me…my father’s twin sister…my aunt. Both of my grandmothers had breast cancer. My cousin died of breast cancer. Breast cancer is like a terrible virus that keeps sweeping through my family. And like all viruses, you can’t get rid of them; they keep coming back.
My aunt was an amazing person. She never met a stranger. She loved everyone. And, she was pro-life. She LOVED babies. She was one of the most precious people I have ever known. I watched her battle this terrible disease for 9 years. There were ups and downs…but she never gave up. She fought, sometimes with hair, sometimes without. She lost her breasts. She had multiple surgeries. She was always hopeful. Every day was a gift. Her life was a gift.
Now, I know there is lots of debate about the link between abortion and breast cancer. And to be honest, I am not convinced either way. I am not a scientist, but I love research. I know that for every study that shows a link, I can find one or two that shows there is no link. I just can’t simply prove that to be fact.
But here is a fact…Susan G. Komen gave $700,000 in grant money to Planned Parenthood last year.
Susan G. Komen is the largest breast cancer research group. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in our country.
Hmmm…why would those two groups be partnering together?
Komen says they give this money to Planned Parenthood so women living in rural areas will have access to mammogram services.
Really??
Well, here’s the truth about that.
NO PLANNED PARENTHOOD ON THE PLANET PROVIDES MAMMOGRAM SERVICES.
Why? Because they can’t. Planned Parenthood is a level one breast service provider. What does that mean? It simply means that Planned Parenthood clinics [sic] are ONLY allowed to provide manual breast exams. You know, the kind you do in the shower. The kind you can get from any nurse or physician in any clinic. They cannot provide any sort of diagnostic services…no biopsies, no breast ultrasounds, AND no mammograms. That is the truth. That is a FACT.
Komen contributes in a very large way to the murder of over 320,000 babies each year. Those pink ribbons don’t seem so cute anymore.
I hear people say, “Well, until breast cancer has affected your family, don’t tell me not to support Komen.” Well, it has affected my family. It has affected us greatly. And I stand against Komen.
And let me say something else very clearly. My aunt valued life very much. But she did not value her life more than the life of any child. She would have given up her life to know that a baby would be saved. For those that continue to support Komen because this disease has affected you or someone you love…this is what you are saying…you are willing to sacrifice the lives of the unborn for your own. If you are comfortable with that, then keep donating to Komen. I hope you are not. I hope you will do the right thing. I will you will stand against this phony organization. Any good they do is blackened by the killing they support.
And if you do stand against them, tell them. Don’t just take away your support, let them know. Send an email to your friend’s list. Post it on your Facebook page. Post the letter that you will send so your friends can copy yours and send one as well. Send a letter to your newspaper. Tell everyone you know. Be an activist. Make your voice heard. Don’t think that Komen doesn’t care…they do. They care very much. Komen needs to keep up their good reputation. Don’t let that happen. Expose them for what they are.
Over 320,000 babies EVERY year. Our voice is worth it. No more pink ribbons in my home. My aunt’s memory is worth more than that…I can’t wrap her life up in a ribbon…especially when that ribbon pays for the murder of children.
[Abby Johnson | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/22/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/22/pink-ribbons-not-cute-when-komen-backs-planned-parenthood/]
Komen Affiliates Gave More Than $569,000 to Planned Parenthood Abortion Industry in 2010
New figures directly from the Komen for the Cure foundation show 18 affiliates of the breast cancer charity gave a total of more than $569,000 to the Planned Parenthood abortion business in 2010.
The donations will certainly prompt the continued boycott of the Komen breast cancer group by millions of pro-life Americans who find it disingenuous that the women’s organization would partner with an abortion business when abortions are linked to an increase in breast cancer and when Planned Parenthood has been proven to mislead the public by falsely claiming it performs mammograms.
The new figures come from an American Life League study of Susan G. Komen affiliates’ federal forms 990 and they show 18 Komen affiliates gave $569,159 to Planned Parenthood in 2010, the latest year for which figures are available. That’s down from the $731,303 Komen officials publicly confirmed in October 2010, when they acknowledged that 20 of the 122 Komen affiliates gave to Planned Parenthood during the 2009 fiscal year.
Komen affiliates in Austin, Teas; Central New Mexico; El Paso, Texas; Greater Amarillo, Texas; Los Angeles County, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Salt Lake City, Utah stopped giving to the abortion business while affiliates in Dallas County, Texas; Denver, Colorado; North Carolina Triad; North Carolina Triangle; and Puget Sound, Washington all began new relationships with Planned Parenthood.
“Komen’s support of Planned Parenthood is defeating its own mission of fighting breast cancer,” Rita Diller, the director of ALL’s STOP Planned Parenthood International program, told LifeNews.com in exclusive comments. Diller added that Planned Parenthood — beyond the issue of abortion — is not the best place for Komen to send hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations if it truly wants to help women prevent or combat breast cancer.
Remainder of article here -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/25/komen-gave-569k-to-planned-parenthood-abortion-biz-in-2010/
Study: Birth Control Not Stopping Unplanned Pregnancies or Abortions
A new study conducted by a former research arm of Planned Parenthood shows the policies of the abortion business promoting contraception and birth control to poor women aren’t working, as unplanned pregnancy rates are rising.
The Guttmacher Institute released a new study Wednesday [http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2011/08/24/index.html] showing considerable decline between 1981 and 1994 in the overall unplanned pregnancy rate has continued recently and remains relatively stable at 5 percent of American women having an unintended pregnancy annually. However, the rate has increased dramatically among poor women, while among higher-income women it has continued to decrease substantially.
With the Planned Parenthood abortion business, which the pro-abortion institute is formerly affiliated with, targeting lower-income women with contraception, birth control and abortion, the new study is a blow to its agenda.
Lawrence B. Finer and Mia R. Zolna conducted the new study [Unintended Pregnancy in the United States: Incidence and Disparities, 2006 -- http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/j.contraception.2011.07.13.pdf], which compares the 1994 data to 2006 figures, and it found that, in 1994, the unintended pregnancy rate among women with incomes below the federal poverty line was 88 per 1,000 women aged 15–44. That increased to 120 in 2001 and 132 in 2006—a 50% rise over the period. At the same time, the rate among higher-income women (those with incomes at or above 200% of the poverty line) fell from 34 in 1994 to 28 in 2001 and 24 in 2006—a 29% decrease.
“Poor women’s high rate of unintended pregnancy results in their also having high—and increasing—rates of both abortions (52 per 1,000) and unplanned births (66 per 1,000). In 2006, poor women had an unintended pregnancy rate five times that of higher-income women, and an unintended birth rate six times as high,” the new report showed.
“Analyzing U.S. government data from the National Survey of Family Growth and other sources, Finer and Zolna found that of the 6.7 million pregnancies in 2006, nearly half (49%) were unintended. Although some unintended pregnancies are accepted or even welcomed, more than four in ten (43%) end in abortion,” the study indicates. The figures make it clear that the birth control and contraception Planned Parenthood and abortion advocates promote are not working to prevent either unplanned pregnancies or abortions.
This new study follows another Guttmacher Institute report, issued in January, showing the decline in abortions that had been taking place over the last two decades has finally stopped. The stoppage of the decline in abortions come as Planned Parenthood and abortion advocates successfully lobbied the Obama administration and Congress to shift taxpayer funding from abstinence education to family planning, arguing it will decrease abortions further. Yet, the report indicates a majority of abortions took place after contraception failure.
The Guttmacher report shows “54 percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method *usually condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant.”
These figures are similar to those of a report in Spain showing abortions doubling despite increased family planning promotion.
And, of the women who say they did not intend to become pregnant, the report said “most of these women have practiced contraception in the past.”
The reasons women give for having an abortion are birth control in nature. Asked to check off a list with more than one reason, 75 percent say they can’t afford to have a baby, 75 percent say having a baby would interfere with work or school, and half say they don’t want to become a single parent or have issues of having a child with their husband or partner.
[from http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2011/08/24/index.html]:
“Unintended Pregnancy in the United States: Incidence and Disparities, 2006” is currently available online -- http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/j.contraception.2011.07.13.pdf -- and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Contraception.
For more information on the impact of unintended pregnancy on public policies and programs, see “Wise Investment: Reducing the Steep Cost to Medicaid of Unintended Pregnancy in the United States,” by Rachel Benson Gold -- Guttmacher Policy Review, Summer 2011, vol. 14, no.3 -- http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/14/3/gpr140306.pdf
[ED NOTE: The above 2 paragraphs were posted at the end of the new Guttmacher report about the pregnancy rates...
(Yawn) It’s the AMAZING Guttmacher solution for the high pregnancy rates in the women who already use contraception: MORE contraception... http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/14/3/gpr140306.pdf ]
[Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/25/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/25/study-birth-control-not-stopping-unplanned-pregnancies-abortions/ ; Disparities in Unintended Pregnancy Grow, Even as National Rate Stagnates -- http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2011/08/24/index.html ; http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/j.contraception.2011.07.13.pdf
DATE: Post Abortion Conference -- www.healingvision.info
Healing Vision conference is set for 26-29 October 2011, in Milwaukee.
There have been 12 Healing Vision conferences in the past, the last one
in 2000. The conference is for anyone with an interest in post-abortion
issues and healing…people running ministries or programs, mental health
professionals, drug and alcohol counselors, clergy of all denominations
and interested others.
This is a think tank sort of post-abortion conference, where researchers and others will address issues we encounter.
Speakers include Henry
Venter who will speak about pseudo-recovery and authentic recovery; Anne
Speckhard PH.D., a pioneer in this work and a world renowned
traumatologist who did research on abortion’s aftermath in Eastern
Europe, Althea Hayton who is an abortion survivor and runs the web site
www.wombtwin.com
Greg Lester, Ph.D. who will be the banquet speaker on
self-care and will speak about personality disorders, Kathleen Gray,
founder of the Centre for Reproductive Loss in Montreal and author of
Grieving Reproductive Loss: The Healing Process (Death, Value and
Meaning), Vincent Rue, Ph.D. and Catherine Coyle, Ph.D, both pioneers .
Men’s grief will also be addressed, as well as healing from abortion in the African American community.
Commentary: Things Planned Parenthood's 'Truth Team' Forgot to Mention
By Susan E. Wills
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) has dispatched a "Truth Team" to rally opposition to the Pence Amendment (H.R. 1, sec. 4013), a measure to stop federal funding of PPFA and its 102 affiliates. But not everything said by PPFA officials and sympathetic media has been the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
In the interest of an informed debate about taxpayer funding of PPFA, a few omissions and potentially misleading statements are addressed below.
Claim: "This is about women's health more than abortion" (Cecile Richards, PPFA President)
This was quoted by Jonathan Alter in a March 14 opinion piece posted on Bloomberg Opinion. But Congress already spends billions every year for women's health care, through Medicaid, Medicare and other programs. Defunding PPFA is about no longer coercing taxpayers to contribute to the nation's largest abortion chain.
In its last reported fiscal year (2008-2009), PPFA clinics aborted 332,278 children, a number equal to the entire population of Cincinnati. Since 1970, PPFA has aborted an estimated 5,300,000 children, equivalent to the entire population of Colorado.
In an interview published March 17 in the Texas Tribune, Ms. Richards spoke at length about all the healthcare PPFA provides: "We see 3 million patients each year across the country. For 97 percent of them, we provide preventive care. Three percent are abortions."
Yet according to PPFA's own March 2011 Planned Parenthood Services fact sheet, 332,278 abortions were performed on some of PPFA's three million clients in the year ending June 30, 2009. This suggests that eleven percent of their clients had abortions in that year, not three percent. But the best measure of how important abortions are to PPFA's bottom line is the fact that abortions produce at least 37 percent of PPFA revenues "by very conservative estimates."[1]
PPFA has also expanded these lucrative abortion services, adding surgical or "medical" (RU-486) abortion to the services offered at an additional 75 clinics between 2005 and 2009. In that period, PPFA's total annual abortions grew 25 percent,[2] while other services declined. For example, prenatal care clients numbered 7,021 in the most recent year (down 60 percent in the last five years),[3] and adoption referrals to other agencies numbered only 977, compared to 4,912 in 2007, (see page 7) a remarkable 80% drop in adoption referrals in only two years.
Due to this increase in abortions and decrease in prenatal care and adoption services, 97.6 percent of PPFA "services" for pregnant women in 2009 involved killing their children, and only 2.4 percent involved prenatal care or adoption referral.
Abby Johnson, former director of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas and author of the new book Unplanned, confirms the key role abortion plays in Planned Parenthood's services. She quotes her regional director as telling her to increase abortions at her clinic in order to "get her revenue up."[4] Only affiliate clinics that provided abortions were profitable. The director reminded Abby that "non-profit" is just "a tax status, not a business status."[5] Sure enough, when the Bryan clinic began offering RU-486 abortions every day, profits rose.
Ms. Johnson's account was borne out in December 2010, when news media reported on a PPFA directive that all affiliates should begin offering abortion services within the next two years.
Claim: Without funding for PPFA, women will lack access to mammograms, primary health care, and other necessary services
In truth, Planned Parenthood clinics [sic] provide no mammograms. They offer only referrals to health centers, doctors, hospitals and labs for mammograms. PPFA breast exams are done by manual palpation, similar to a breast self-exam. But as a National Institutes of Health MedlinePlus fact sheet states: "There is no evidence that doing breast self exams saves lives from breast cancer." For that, mammography is needed.
As for primary health care services, PPFA clinics performed fewer than 20,000 such services in its last reporting year, an insignificant part of the total of 11.4 million services nationwide. Through state and federal Medicaid programs, low-income women already have access to contraception, as well as needed health care services-including testing and treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs), Pap tests for cervical cancer, and mammograms-at countless hospitals, doctors' offices, and over 1,000 federally-funded community health centers.
Claim: "Planned Parenthood cannot survive without federal funds"
So states Jonathan Alter. Really? PPFA has almost one billion dollars in net assets ($994,700,000), and in its most recent filing reported $737 million in revenues for the year, not counting the $363 million from taxpayers (see page 29). Any untaxed corporation should be able to scrape by on $737 million in revenues.
Claim: "Without funding, PPFA won't be able to provide contraceptive services that prevent more than 612,000 unintended pregnancies every year"
Mr. Alter and many others repeat the "pregnancies averted" figure[6] to justify funding PPFA. This claim remains one of the more imaginative "statistics" devised by abortion advocates. Equally creative is the claim that widespread access to emergency contraception (EC) would cut abortions by half, when a definitive meta-analysis of 23 studies in 2007 showed that EC has had "null" effect on abortion rates.[7]
The "pregnancies averted" figure depends on two assumptions, neither of which has been demonstrated empirically: first, that contraceptive use reduces abortion rates overall; second, that young people are inherently "unable" to control their sexual behavior, and will therefore engage in sex to the same extent whether or not they have access to contraception.
Reality: Access to contraception does NOT reduce abortion rates
Anyone who finds that statement shocking has not been paying attention. A study published earlier this year found that a 63 percent increase in the use of contraceptives in Spain over a ten-year period was accompanied by a 108 percent increase in the rate of elective abortions.[8] This counter-intuitive reality has also been documented in peer-reviewed journals in the U.S. and Western Europe. Studies by Peter Arcidiacono in the U.S., K. Edgardh in Sweden, and David Paton and Sourafel Girma as well as M. Wiggins et al. in the U.K., are reviewed in a USCCB fact sheet "Greater Access to Contraception Does Not Reduce Abortions."
Planned Parenthood leaders have known for a half century that when access to contraception increases, abortion rates can rise or, at least, remain unchanged.[9] The correlation between contraceptive use and recourse to abortion was noted in a 1932 article in the British Medical Journal, by a PPFA doctor in 1936, in a study done by the Margaret Sanger Clinical Research Bureau in 1940 (finding 41 percent of pregnancies of contracepting women terminated in illegal abortion, while only 3.5 percent of the pregnancies of non-contracepting women did), and by Malcolm Potts, MD, then medical director of International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1981.[10]
There are many reasons why access to contraception does not reduce abortion rates (and often is associated with higher pregnancy and abortion rates): method failure, user error, cumulative risk, and risk compensation, as well as discontinuation of a method due to unpleasant side effects.
Method failure and user error
Method failure refers to the inherent ineffectiveness of the contraceptive (in the case of condoms, strength, reliability, correct size) and also depends on the age, experience and maturity of the user. A large national study in France, for example, found that adult couples with more than five years' experience using condoms had a total method failure rate (from breakage and slippage) of only 1.4 percent, but couples with less than five years' experience had a method failure rate of 7.8 percent.[11]
User failure can result from any seemingly minor discrepancy in use, including inconsistent use. Method failure and user failure add up to "typical use."
With typical use, especially among teenagers, contraceptives often fail to prevent pregnancy.
Among low-income teenagers, the 12-month "failure" (i.e., pregnancy) rate for condoms is 23.1 percent; but if the teens are cohabiting, the pregnancy rate is 71.7 percent because of the higher frequency with which they're having sex. For low-income teens using oral contraceptives, the 12-month failure rate is 12.9 percent; among cohabiters, 48.4 percent will become pregnant.[12]
Cumulative risk
Cumulative risk is nicely illustrated by the differential pregnancy rates for teens who have sex occasionally versus those who cohabit: 23.1 vs. 71.7 percent pregnancy rates for condom users, and 12.9 vs. 48.4 percent pregnancy rates for those taking oral contraceptives. It's a lot like tossing a coin. The odds of getting heads with one toss are 50 percent, but toss the coin five times and the odds of getting heads once are almost 97 percent. Only instead of "heads," you may get a baby-or an incurable STD.
Risk compensation
People show a greater willingness to engage in potentially risky behavior when they believe that their risk has been reduced through technology. For example, studies report an increase in melanoma among sunscreen users because, believing themselves protected from UV rays, they stay in the sun far longer than those who don't use sunscreen.[13]
One way to measure the effect of risk compensation in the context of sexual risks taken by teens and young adults (i.e., more frequent and casual sex, more partners and promiscuous partners) is to examine rates of STDs.
Examining the impact of free, over-the-counter EC for teenagers in England, researchers reported: "The EBC [emergency birth control] scheme had no impact on conception rates." However, "the presence of a pharmacy EBC scheme in a local authority is associated with an increase in the rate of STI [sexually transmitted illness] diagnoses amongst teenagers of about 5%. The equivalent figure for [children under 16] is even larger at 12%." This "is consistent with the hypothesis that greater access to EBC induces an increase in adolescent risky sexual behavior."[14]
The United States is awash in contraceptives, yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that "there are approximately19 million new STD infections each year-almost half of them among young people 15 to 24 years of age". The cost of STDs to the U.S. health care system is estimated to be as high as $15.9 billion annually. And 60 million Americans have the incurable virus that causes genital herpes.
Claim: Kids Aren't Capable of Abstaining from Sex
In 2009, 54 percent of high school-aged teens were sexually abstinent (had never had sex); that figure includes 70 percent of 9th graders and 60 percent of 10th graders (at Table 61). [15]
The percentage of girls 15 to 17 who ever had sex dropped from 38 percent in 1995 to 27.7 percent in the reporting period 2006-2008. Even among girls 15-19, the majority were abstinent: 49.3 percent had ever had sex in 1995, compared to 41.6 percent in the reporting period 2006-2008.
Among males 15 to 17, the percentage who ever had sex was 43.1 percent in 1995 and dropped to 28.8 percent in the reporting period 2006-2008. In 2002, a majority of males 15 to 19, had ever had sex (55.2 percent), but in the reporting period 2006-2008, only a minority of males had (42.6 percent). If all these teens can remain abstinent despite pressures from the culture and peers, why can't the rest? Especially if we remove from the situation authority figures like Planned Parenthood officials who insist that no one can.
Reality: Planned Parenthood's Fail-Safe Business Plan
Intentionally or not, Planned Parenthood has put in place a business plan that is certain to generate repeat business for a wide variety of services throughout the client's lifetime:
Planned Parenthood combines compelling marketing (kids, you can enjoy "safe sex" without consequences!); location (often low-income neighborhoods where most services are paid for by a third party, such as state or federal Medicaid or Title X, eliminating any financial barrier to using their services); and products that don't live up to the promise of protection from STDs and pregnancy, due to method and user errors. In 2005, Consumer Reports ranked dead last (among 23 brands) two of the condom brands that PPFA affiliates offer free to customers, due to their rating of "poor" in strength and reliability.
All this adds up to a revolving door of customers, constantly returning for the pricier services: emergency contraception; pregnancy tests; STD testing and treatment, including Pap tests for cervical cancer (100 percent of which is caused by certain persistent strains of the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus [HPV]), diagnostic colposcopies and LOOP/LEEP procedures; cryotherapy; HIV testing; and, of course, the big money-maker, abortions.
Why haven't supporters of PPFA funding in Congress and the press noticed that something is amiss? Here is an organization that offers contraception (35 percent of 2009 services)[15] for "safe sex," yet also reports that 35 percent of its services deal with the failure of "safe sex" to protect against STDs (testing and treatment), and 11 percent of clients undergo abortions. Is it not likely that some of the same clients going to Planned Parenthood for contraception are returning for these other services when PPFA and contraception fail them? After all, 54 percent of women seeking abortions report they were using contraceptives in the month they became pregnant (see Table 61, p.98).
Abstinence before, and monogamy within, marriage are the only sure ways to prevent STDs. But Planned Parenthood can't afford to recommend such a lifestyle: if adopted widely, it would quickly put them out of business.
Susan E. Wills, Esq. is Assistant director for education and outreach, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities www.usccb.org
[1] Planned Parenthood puts the cost at between $350.00 and $950.00. Also, not all of their abortions are performed in the first trimester.
[2] PPFA Annual Report 2005-2006, p. 4, reported 264,943 abortion procedures in 2005, while the PPFA Services Fact Sheet reports 332,278 abortions.
[3] PPFA Annual Report 2004-2005, p. 4, showing 17,610 prenatal clients in 2004, and PPFA Services Fact Sheet showing 7,021.
[4] Abby Johnson, Unplanned (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), p. 114.
[5] Unplanned, p. 114.
[6] See also PPFA Fact Sheet, "By the Numbers," February 2011 which also include this figure of 612,000 pregnancies averted.
[7] E. Raymond et al., "Population Effects of Increased Access to Emergency Contraceptive Pills: A Systematic Review," Obstetrics & Gynecology 109.1 (Jan. 2007): 181-8.
[8] J. Dueñas et al., "Trends in the Use of Contraceptive Methods and Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy in the Spanish Population during 1997-2007," 83 Contraception (2011): 82-87.
[9] Kenneth D. Whitehead has assembled many early statements by the "fathers" of the U.S. reproductive rights movement, in his article "Do Sex Education and Access to Contraception Cut Down on Abortion?" He quotes, for example, the concluding statement of a 1955 PPFA conference: "It was recognized by conference participants that no scientific evidence has been developed to support the claim that increased availability of contraceptive service will clearly result in a decreased illegal abortion rate." Among the signatories were Alan Guttmacher, MD (an early President of PPFA), Christopher Tietze, MD (PPFA's principal researcher for years), John Rock, MD (co-developer of the Pill), and Louis M. Hellman, MD (a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs and administrator of the Title X program).
[10] See text accompanying endnotes 37-42 in Whitehead, note 18.
[11] A. Messiah et al., "Condom Breakage and Slippage during Sexual Intercourse: A French National Survey," American Journal of Public Health 87 (1997): 442.
[12] H. Fu et al., "Contraceptive Failure Rates: New Estimates from the 1995 Survey of Family Growth," Family Planning Perspectives 31 (1999): 56-63, at 61.
[13] See, e.g., P. Autier et al., "Melanoma and Use of Sunscreens: An EORTC Case-control Study in Germany, Belgium, and France," International Journal of Cancer 61 (1995): 749-755 and others cited in note 37 of S. Wills, "Condoms and AIDS: Is the Pope Right or Just ‘Horrifically Ignorant'?" The Linacre Quarterly 77(1) [2010]: 17-29.
[14] S. Girma and D. Paton, "The Impact of Emergency Birth Control on Teen Pregnancy and STIs," Journal of Health Economics (2011), doi:100.1016/j.healeco.2010.12.004.
[15] See also PPFA "By Numbers" Fact Sheet, at bulletpoint 8
5 Comments on "Things Planned Parenthood's 'Truth Team' Forgot to Mention"
[April 10, 2011, http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/things_planned_parenthoods_tru.html]
THE ECONOMICS OF ABORTION
By August 31, 2011 the abortion toll will reach . . .
54,513,314
If THIS Doesn't Shock You, Wait Until You See the Bill!
Most people are shocked to learn that there have been 54.5 million abortions in the United States since abortion was decriminalized in Colorado in 1967. A recent poll showed that even a majority of pro-choice people in New York City are shocked by the numbers.
However, we don't post these numbers to shock anyone. We do so to invite people to think about the implications for their own future and the future of the country. They affect all of us as family members, taxpayers, and citizens of the most extraordinary society that has ever graced the face of the earth.
Yes, we have endured traumatic times before. They almost always involved fundamental principles of law and justice . . . like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Slavery and the Civil War are perhaps the best examples. But World War II and the long Cold War qualify, too. At stake in each case were the fundamental principles in which we believe.
At 29, Lincoln warned that if America died from anything, it would be failure from within. Years later he said, "While the people retain their virtue and their vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years."
That view is certainly being tested now, as it has been by other corrupt administrations in the past. But it is the other element in Lincoln's comment that should unnerve us: that, by killing our own unborn children, we are rapidly losing our claim to virtue and vigilance.
Let's be honest. Even slavery -- as awful as it was -- pales in comparison to the evil of abortion. At its peak, slavery affected the lives of perhaps 3 million blacks. We have already ended the lives of 6 times times that many blacks in four decades of abortion; and 18 times that many unborn children of all races and colors.
Slavery never even came close to doing that.
The loss of lives and of faith can also be seen in our churches today. Just look at all the empty pews and you will see a missing generation -- many lost because they are no longer among us . . . plus many more who have lost faith in a world that values life so little.
Those who justified slavery often did so on economic terms. Without the low cost labor of slaves, the agrarian economy of the South could not survive, they said. Yet, in fact it did. A century and a half later, the South is far more prosperous than it ever would have been if slavery had survived.
By contrast, abortion today threatens our very survival as a nation.
Just look at the numbers: 54.5 million abortions represent 30% of the under-45 generation. If they were still around today, that segment of our economy would be 43% larger -- providing needed impetus for new household formation, housing, education, automobiles, electronics, clothing, agricultural products, healthcare.
Moreover, half of them would still be in school creating jobs for other people. We'd need millions more teachers, nurses, doctors, workers and small businesses of all kinds. We estimate the total at 1.4 million more new businesses and 21 million more jobs.
We are also losing something else -- an investment in our own future. How many future leaders in government, business, the arts, religion were in that 54.5 million? How many more scientists, business people, workers, consumers, taxpayers would have been born except for abortion? The myth that they would all end up on welfare is insane.
And please make sure you count the missing parents of still another generation! Because our under-45 generation has a huge hole in it, the next one will have one, too. It's the inevitable "echo effect" of any negative demographic shift. It goes on and on, and it causes the kind of negative compounding that brings down civilizations.
That's why management maven Peter Drucker called "the collapsing birth rate in the developed world" the most important management challenge of the 21st Century. "In fact," he said, "Japan and all of Southern Europe . . . are drifting toward national suicide by the end of the 21st Century."
There is nothing new about this. The former Soviet Union was the first to collapse -- not because of Ronald Reagan -- but because they were aborting 300 babies for every 100 live births for decades. You can't do that and remain strong as a country.
Even China won't escape the crisis -- not because its economy is so closely linked to ours, but because their demographic crisis is even worse than ours. Their youth population is shrinking faster than ours because of their 1-child per family policy, and their aging population is 5 or 6 times larger than ours. You'll know they've hit the wall when they begin euthanizing the elderly faster than they have been killing the unborn.
So that's why we post these numbers. It is to remind us all that there is no way to sustain a growth economy in a society where the demographic pie keeps shrinking the way it has -- decade after decade -- for 50 years.
This is also the source of our conflict with the Muslim world, where the average rate of natural increase is 5 or 6 times what it is for countries in the West. The truth is: If we keep killing our babies, they'll bury us. It is only a matter of time, unless we decide to change.
Lincoln was right. We need to get to work "restoring our virtue and our vigilance, and ending these extremes of wickedness and folly," or there may well be hell to pay.
For more, go to: http://www.movementforabetteramerica.org
Dennis Howard is a veteran journalist and market researcher, who founded The Movement for a Better America as a pro-life think tank in 1995. From 1994 on, he correctly predicted a major economic collapse caused by the mounting abortion toll in America, and correctly dated it as starting in 2000 and extending through 2010 and 2020. Dennis has been writing since 1950. He is available for print, radio & television interviews. Contact him at
Dennis Howard, Movement for a Better America, Inc.
[21 Aug 2011 e-letter]
LEGISLATION
Alabama Fetal Pain Abortion Ban Goes Into Effect 1 September 11
One day after news surfaced that a similar law in Idaho would become the subject of the first lawsuit against such a measure, Alabama officials are putting into effect a new law banning abortions based on fetal pain.
For entire article, visit -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/01/alabama-fetal-pain-abortion-ban-goes-into-effect-today/
2011 Louisiana Legislative Summary
Although three “respect for life” bills were introduced by pro-life legislators during the 2011 regular “fiscal-only” Legislative Session, only one, HB 636, passed both chambers. Following an excellent presentation by Rep. Hoffman (D - Monroe), plus similar support and defense by Dorinda Bordlee, Esq. of the Bioethics Defense Fund, and Ben Clapper, Exec. Director of the Louisiana Right to Life Federation, their bill passed the House, 96-0-9, with 74 co-sponsors, and the Senate, 30-5-4, with 23 co-sponsors. On July 6, Governor Jindal signed the bill as Act 411, to require the posting of specifically designed signs in abortion facilities to inform women presenting for abortion that it is unlawful for them to be pressured or coerced in any way to abort their child, and for DHH to establish a user-friendly website with information on abortion issues, including complications, etc. This law is effective August 15, 2011.
Our testimony regarding this, and also the unsuccessful bills for 2011, is on our website under Legislative Testimony.
[August 2011, The Hippocratic Resource, Resource Roundup, vol. 11, nos.8-9]
Nebraska Webcam Abortion Ban Now In Effect
Two new pro-life laws went into effect in Nebraska on Saturday, 27 August 11 — one that requires teenagers to get parental consent before getting an abortion and another that is receiving more attention, that bans webcam abortions.
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed into law both bills in May in the presence of the bill’s sponsor, Senator Tony Fulton, its prioritizer, Senator Dave Bloomfield and Julie Schmit-Albin and Sandy Danek of Nebraska Right to Life as well as Greg Schleppenbach of Nebraska Catholic Conference.
The webcam abortion ban was Nebraska Right to Life’s priority legislation for the 2011 session and it extends the standard of care for abortion to provide that every abortion, whether chemical or surgical, is done by a licensed physician physically present in the same room as the pregnant woman or girl.
The legislation comes in response to Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which operates abortion centers in Iowa and Nebraska, starting the practice of telemed abortions in Iowa — where women are denied the opportunity to meet with a physician in person before using the dangerous abortion drug that has killed dozens of women and injured 2,200 in the U.S alone, as the FDA reports. http://bit.ly/nwvgdG
The FDA suggests an in-person visit with a physician before using the mifepristone abortion drug because the patient needs to be evaluated for ectopic pregnancies that cause death or serious injury if an abortion drug is taken in such situations. But the Planned Parenthood abortion business is beginning to use this webcam process in Iowa and is thought to be considering expanding it to more rural and remote areas of other states because of the expense and difficulty in recruiting abortion practitioners and getting them to all of the Planned Parenthood centers in a certain state.
Pro-life groups like Nebraska Right to Life say the bill is needed to stop the abortion business from putting profits over patients — and to reduce abortions.
“The implementation of the Stop Web Cam Abortions bill is a significant victory for pro-life in our State because any time we can not only keep Planned Parenthood of the Heartland at bay but thwart their plans for expansion, then we indeed are doing our job,” Schmit-Albin tells LifeNews. “LB 521 was Nebraska Right to Life’s priority legislation and what we devoted the first half of the year to because we saw the clear threat of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland bringing their chemical web cam abortion scheme over from Iowa into our State. They can’t do that now.”
“Since the abortion industry comes up with new methods of killing unborn children, it’s up to States to address something that wasn’t even occurring when Roe v. Wade came into being in 1973,” she said. “Planned Parenthood of the Heartland initiated Web Cam chemical abortions in Iowa in 2008 and has done over 2,000 of them there since then. Our Legislature saw that situation and rightly concluded that Nebraska did not need to be the next testing ground for Planned Parenthood’s desire to expand chemical abortions beyond urban areas of the State.”
Nebraska joins Kansas, Oklahoma and Arizona in passing a ban on webcam or telemed abortions.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland announced months ago that it intends to expand in Nebraska including heading to Fremont, Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney, Norfolk and North Platte where the telemed abortion process may be used.
Schmit-Albin says women who get the abortion drug without an in-person exam and visit with a physician are left to deal with any consequences alone and she pointed to stories of “young girls being sent home to hemorrhage and deliver their babies at home not knowing what to expect.”
“This isn’t about women’s access to “healthcare” but more about Planned Parenthood reaching its tentacles across the vast expanse of our state into rural areas where they have not been and inflicting a dangerous drug cocktail on women and young girls who might end up in their local emergency rooms hours away from the abortionist who started the abortion,” she said.
She said women visiting Planned Parenthood for the telemed abortions “are told by Planned Parenthood to act like they are having a miscarriage if they go into an ER after having problems at home. So the local ER doctor doesn’t even know that her problem is due to a chemical abortion.”
“How is this about improving women’s health?” Schmit-Albin asked. “It’s all about the bottom line for Planned Parenthood: money.”
On the parental consent bill, the state health department says 143 girls under the age of 18 got abortions in Nebraska last year and 2,464 abortions were done in total.
ACTION: Contact Gov. Heineman at http://www.governor.nebraska.gov and thank him for signing the bills into law.
[Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/26/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/26/nebraska-webcam-abortion-ban-goes-into-effect-saturday/]
COURT CASES
Alabama Supreme Court Gives Legal Recognition to the Unborn Child / Alabama Supreme Court Upholds Unborn Victims Law
In a unanimous decision last Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court expanded legal protections for the unborn child when it ruled that Alabama’s wrongful death statute applied to the unborn child at any stage of development. This means that an offender can be tried civilly for the death of an unborn child regardless of viability.
April Mack was 12 weeks pregnant with Baby Mack in September 2007, when she and her fiancé were in a car accident that later resulted in the miscarriage of their unborn child.
April Mack sued the drivers for injuries she incurred and also for the wrongful death of her unborn child. A Jefferson County judge dismissed Mack’s case based on viability. The county court found that the unborn child did not enjoy the legal protection of the wrongful death statute because it could not survive outside of the womb.
The case made its way to the Alabama Supreme Court where the justices unanimously overturned the lower court decision. The Court held that the wrongful death law applies to the unborn child at any stage of development. This ruling makes the civil law consistent with the criminal fetal homicide law which applies to the unborn child from the moment of conception.
Creating new precedent, the Alabama Supreme Court also overturned two previous decisions that found wrongful death statutes only applied to unborn children after the point of viability.
The court noted that at the time of the two previous decisions, Alabama’s fetal homicide laws only applied to the unborn child at the point of viability. However, these laws have since changed in order to protect the unborn child at any stage of development—thus showing a clear legislative intent to grant legal protection to the unborn child from the moment of conception.
It correlates that if the state protects the unborn child under criminal law, then it should also protect the unborn child under civil law.
The court cites previous court decisions showing the connection between Alabama’s fetal homicide law and its wrongful death law. This opinion explains that the purpose of Alabama’s wrongful death statute is to “prevent homicides.”
This decision makes Alabama the tenth state to specifically permit wrongful-death actions pre-viability.
This is a huge victory not only for April Mack, but also for the legal recognition of the unborn child, because this case recognizes the personhood of the unborn child under civil law.
[16 Sept 11, Mary Novick, www.AUL.org, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/alabama-supreme-court-gives-legal-recognition-to-the-unborn-child?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LifesitenewscomLatestHeadlines+%28LifeSiteNews.com+Latest+Headlines%29]
Alabama Supreme Court Upholds Pro-Life Unborn Victims Law
In a unanimous decision last Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court expanded legal protections for the unborn child when it ruled that Alabama’s wrongful death statute applied to the unborn child at any stage of development. This means that an offender can be tried civilly for the death of an unborn child regardless of viability.
For the complete article, visit http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/19/alabama-supreme-court-upholds-pro-life-unborn-victims-law/
Appeals Court Upholds Critical Portions of South Dakota Informed Consent Law
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit on Friday upheld the majority of South Dakota’s informed consent law, including a requirement that doctors inform pregnant women that they have “an existing relationship” with an “unborn human being.” A lower court ruling had struck down that provision because the judge concluded that preborn children are not “persons.”
Harold Cassidy, an attorney affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund, filed the appeal to the 8th Circuit on behalf of a group of pregnancy centers that successfully intervened in the suit to protect the interest of women.
The Family Research Council, CareNet, Heartbeat International, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates filed an amicus brief last year asking the court to reject Planned Parenthood’s attempt to block portions of the law.
ADF Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden said the court was right to uphold informing women of “an undisputed biological fact.”
“A child’s life is worth more than Planned Parenthood’s bottom line,” said Aden. “Planned Parenthood and other proponents of death work diligently to restrict the information mothers have about abortion and the life within them.”
In 2005, the South Dakota Legislature passed House Bill 1166, which revised state law to require that women be given critical biological, relationship, and medical information before undergoing an abortion. Planned Parenthood, the operator of the state’s only abortion clinic, filed the suit Planned Parenthood v. Rounds to block implementation of the law. After the 8th Circuit lifted a lower court injunction against the law, it was returned to federal district court.
In August 2009, a district court judge ruled that portions of the law requiring doctors to inform women contemplating abortion that they are terminating a human life are constitutional, but she also ruled that other portions requiring doctors to tell women of their legally protected relationship with the preborn child and warning them of the documented risks of depression and suicide from abortion were unconstitutional.
The 8th Circuit reversed her decision concerning the “protected relationship” provision, and only narrowly upheld the judge’s decision with regard to the “risk of suicide” provision.
Arguing that the “risk of suicide” provision should have been upheld, Circuit Judge Raymond Gruender wrote in dissent that “even the evidence relied upon by Planned Parenthood acknowledges a significant, known statistical correlation between abortion and suicide. This well-documented statistical correlation is sufficient to support the required disclosure that abortion presents an ‘increased risk’ of suicide, as that term is used in the relevant medical literature.”
He noted that Planned Parenthood did not challenge the documented risks of depression.
[6 Sept 11, ST. PAUL, Minnesota, Kathleen Gilbert, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/appeals-court-upholds-critical-portions-of-south-dakota-informed-consent-la?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e96526a7b8-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines09_06_2011&utm_medium=email
Court Victory: South Dakota Informed Consent Law Describing Abortion Risks is OK
A federal appeals court has given South Dakota pro-life advocates a victory by rejecting Planned Parenthood’s attempt to block a South Dakota law. The informed consent law is designed to help persuade women to consider positive alternatives to abortion.
The law requires the state’s lone abortion center, run by Planned Parenthood, to detail the links between abortion and the increased risk of depression and suicide.
For the entire article, visit -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/02/court-south-dakota-law-telling-women-abortion-risks-ok/
[Ertelt | Pierre, SD | LifeNews.com | 9/2/11]
CONSCIENCE
National Life Chain Influences Public Debate for Conscience Rights / Trying to Stop Erosion of the Right of Conscience
This is a video (under 5 minutes) about a nursing student who stood for those principles she had learned as a child while witnessing for life with her family -- http://liveaction.org/blog/med-students-no-longer-forced-to-assist-in-abortions/
She had the courage & spunk to contact a legal firm that works with health professionals when their Right of Conscience is attacked.
Within 26 hours of the formal request, Vanderbilt removed the requirement that forced resident nursing students to participate in abortion procedures.
"This Vanderbilt nursing student is a great example of what one principled person can accomplish and she cites Life Chain as important in the formation of her ProLife position," according to Mike Kofroth, Life Chain state director for Wisconsin.
"Since the start of Life Chain in Milwaukee, I have seen its most powerful influence has been on those who hold the signs and not the general public. This influence is most critical on our children as they participate year after year. Anne states how Life Chain influenced her and demonstrates how this influence can affect the public debate in ways beyond what we at first may realize."
Check this 4+-minute video of her story:
http://liveaction.org/blog/med-students-no-longer-forced-to-assist-in-abortions/
Visit http://LifeChain.net for more than 1800 locations set for October
[28 Aug 2011]
Trying to Stop Erosion of the Right of Conscience -- Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011 ("Fortenberry Bill", H.R. 1179 and S. 1467)
This information concerns your right of conscience. The Obama administration appears poised to adopt a radical advisory board recommendation: that the federal government must pay for or force others to pay for ethically controversial contraceptive drugs.
AAPLOG does not take a position on birth control methods per se, leaving that to the individual physician and his/her conscience. (AAPLOG takes a strong position against abortifacients.)
AAPLOG feels that the impending government action regarding ethically controversial contraceptive drugs is a serious violation of the physician's right to follow his/her conscience.
We urge you to consider the following editorial , and then write a brief comment to the HHS expressing your feelings. Submit your views to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is receiving comments from the public on the new contraception mandate rule until September 30, 2011 http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=HHS-OS-2011-0023-0002
The following editorial by Jonathan Imbody of CMDA and Freedom2Care outlines the issue:
"
Contraception mandate violates conscience rights

-"The two sides of contraception-"
Published in The Washington Post, July 25, 2011
By Jonathan Imbody, CMA VP for Govt. Relations
July 25, 2011--Discarding consideration of both cost and conscientious objections, the Obama administration appears poised to adopt a radical advisory board recommendation: that the federal government must pay for or force others to pay for ethically controversial contraceptive drugs.
Included in the indiscriminate mandate would be controversial drugs such as ella (ulipristal acetate) and the "morning-after pill" (levonorgestrel).
Food and Drug Administration labels note that these drugs "may inhibit implantation" of a living human embryo.
Since many physicians, patients, employers and even some insurers adhere to life-affirming ethical standards, they cannot in good conscience participate in prescribing, taking or paying for such drugs.
This mandate offers them no alternative.

That's obviously of scant concern to the administration, which has gutted the only federal regulation protecting conscientious medical professionals from job-ending discrimination. Nor does the administration consider consequential the additional cost to taxpayers and potentially business-killing burdens that this overbearing policy will bring.

Time and again, confronted with protests that the government cannot continue to willfully disregard cost and conscience, this president audaciously answers, "Yes, we can."
Poll: Americans oppose contraception mandate
(Excerpted from "39% Say Health Insurance Companies Should Be Required to Cover Contraceptives," Rasmussen Reports, August 04, 2011)
The Obama administration on Monday announced a new set of standards that require health insurance companies to cover all government-approved contraceptives for women, without co-payments or other fees for the patient. A plurality of Americans nationwide opposes this requirement and would like to have the option of picking their health plans based on cost and what coverage they need.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 39% believe health insurance companies should be required to cover all government approved contraceptives for women, but 46% don't think they should be. Another 15% are undecided.
Jonathan Imbody, CMA VP for Govt. Relations: "The good news is that Americans oppose the contraception mandate; the bad news is that the administration will mandate it anyway. This issue crystalizes the coercive government control that so many Americans object to about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ('Obamacare').

"A fig-leaf 'conscience exemption' disqualifies even CMDA and other pro-life organizations from conscientious exemption, incredibly because we serve individuals who don't share our religious tenets.
The ridiculously narrow conscience exemption only applies to a 'religious employer,' defined as "one that (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under section 6033(a)(1) and section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) or (iii) of the [Internal Revenue] Code.'
"With the administration relentlessly pursuing policies that violate conscience rights (such as gutting the only federal regulation protecting healthcare professionals' conscience rights), we must pass legislation to block the coercion. Urge your lawmakers to cosponsor the CMA-backed Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (The Fortenberry Bill)(H.R. 1179 and S. 1467)."
More about the Fortenberry Bill this in the next letter...
[Aug 27, 2011]
29 August 2011
On 8-27, we sent you an email with a July 28 editorial comment about the impending Obamacare Contraception Mandate. Whatever your feelings on the contraceptive issues, this is a government program mandating that all insurance programs must provide free contraceptive coverage (and, by extension, physicians participating in these programs would be expected to prescribe the mandated medications.)
Some of these meds are very controversial with regard to abortifacient activity. Thus it conflicts with the conscience convictions of many physicians (and other taxpayers) to have to pay for such medications, and, for prolife doctors to have to prescribe meds they conclude have abortifacient action.
For the AAPLOG Position Paper on this, go to: http://www.aaplog.org/american-issues-2/contraceptive-mandate/
On Aug 1, the HHS announced that this mandate would be implemented for all insurance programs, effective Aug 1, 2012 (For Aug 1 News Release, which is very informative, go to http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/08/20110801b.html
As we mentioned on 8-27, AAPLOG strongly objects to this government mandated override of physicians consciences, (as well asnto the taxpayer funding of potentially abortifacient meds.)
There is a comment period with the HHS until Sept 30. We strongly encourage you to submit your comments at http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=HHS-OS-2011-0023-0002
(I just submitted my comments. It took 5 minutes.)
If we are not going to speak for our conscience rights, who will? NO ONE.
You will find the AAPLOG position statement in this issue as the lead item on our web site home page under "American Issues."
What else can you do to speak up for your own conscience rights? Ask your congressmen, both in HR and Senate, "Please co-sponsor the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (The Fortenberry Bill)(H.R. 1179 and S. 1467)." This is very simple, as follows:
The easiest way to contact your legislator is this:
For Representatives, Go to https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Follow the prompts. If you don't know the last 4 numbers on your 10 digit zip code, look on your driver's license.
Paste (or write) your message. Submit. Done!
For Senators, call (202) 224-3121
Or go to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Follow prompts, paste letter & submit. Done!
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED: the specifics of the Fortenberry Bill are below:
Regarding the "Fortenberry Bill", (H.R. 1179 and S. 1467) Respect for Rights of Conscience Act
The following summary was written by the Congressional Research Service, a well-respected nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress. GovTrack did not write and has no control over these summaries.
8/2/2011--Introduced.
Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011 ("Fortenberry Bill", H.R. 1179 and S. 1467):
Amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to permit a health plan to decline coverage of specific items and services that are contrary to the religious beliefs of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan or the purchaser or beneficiary (in the case of individual coverage) without penalty.
Declares that such plans are still considered to: (1) be providing the essential health benefits package or preventive health services, (2) be a qualified health plan, and (3) have fulfilled other requirements under PPACA.
Declares that nothing in PPACA shall be construed to authorize a health plan to require a provider to provide, participate in, or refer for a specific item or service contrary to the provider's religious beliefs or moral convictions.
Prohibits a health plan from being considered to have failed to provide timely or other access to items or services or to fulfill any other requirement under PPACA because it has respected the rights of conscience of such a provider.
Prohibits an American Health Benefit Exchange (a state health insurance exchange) or other official or entity acting in a governmental capacity in the course of implementing PPACA from discriminating against a health plan, plan sponsor, health care provider, or other person because of an unwillingness to provide coverage of, participate in, or refer for, specific items or services.
Creates a private cause of action for the protection of individual rights created under this Act. Authorizes any person or entity to assert a violation of this Act as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding.
Designates the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to receive and investigate complaints of discrimination based on this Act. Makes this Act effective as if it were included in PPACA.
Philippines Sees Maternal Mortality Decline Without Abortion
While some backers of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill in the Philippines say it is needed to reduce maternal mortality, studies show the nation that has experienced success in dropping its maternal mortality rates without resorting to legalizing abortion.
Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation of the University of Washington in Seattle examined maternal mortality rates in 181 countries and found the rate (the number of women’s deaths per 100,000) dropped by 81 percent in the Philippines between 1980 and 2008. The decrease comes as the ...nation has resisted efforts to legalize abortions, even though the United Nations and pro-abortion groups claim women will supposedly die in illegal abortions and increase the maternal mortality rate if abortion is prohibited.
The 2010 study, published in Lancet, shows the Philippines outpaced first-world nations like Germany, Russia and Israel — where abortions are legal — in cutting maternal mortality rates.
Meanwhile, the National Statistical Coordination Board in the Philippines, according to Spero Forum, has shown the same results. From 1990-2010, the daily maternal mortality rate dropped 21 percent, its figures indicated. The World Health Organization also found that the Filipino maternal mortality rate dropped 48 percent from 1990 to 2008.
Spero indicates abortion backers have relied on a 2004 study from the World Health Organization and UNICEF to make the claim that a short-term increase in maternal mortality in the Philippines meant abortions should be legalized, but the study also includes an important disclaimer: “The margins of uncertainty associated with the estimated MMRs are very large, and the estimates should not, therefore, be used to monitor trends in the short term. In addition, cross country comparisons should be treated with considerable circumspection because different strategies have been used to derive the estimates for different countries, making it difficult to draw comparisons.”
The various new reports on the Philippines make it clear that the rates have dropped long-term.
Last month, a study released by Human Rights Watch, entitled “Stop Making Excuses: Accountability for Maternal Health Care in South Africa,” highlights nearly the same notion. Human Rights Watch is confirming what we have long known: Good quality health care, and not abortion, is what will decrease maternal mortality rates for the populace. The Human Rights Watch 66-page report details situations in which pregnant women were actually abused by the very medical staff from which they sought help.
“When government officials and health care advocates spend their days pushing abortion on women, you are going to get more abortions,” said MCCL GO Executive Director Scott Fischbach. “If they change focus and push quality health care, women and babies can live. It’s pretty simple.”
The Lancet study also found maternal morality numbers are declining worldwide even though more nations around the world are not legalizing abortions. The Lancet reports 526,300 maternal deaths worldwide in 1980 and 342,900 deaths in 2008, a reduction of 35 percent. A total of 60,000 of the 2008 deaths were pregnant women in eastern Africa who died from AIDS, not any pregnancy complications.
Ireland, a country with pro-life laws in place, has the lowest maternal mortality rate in the world, and Nepal, a country with abortion on demand, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates at 830 deaths per 100,000 live births.
According to the study, maternal mortality increased in the United States by 42 percent from 1980 to 2008.
Abortion was legal in the U.S. throughout all nine months of pregnancy during this 28-year period.
[Ertelt | Manilla, Philippines | LifeNews.com | 9/1/11, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/09/01/philippines-sees-maternal-mortality-decline-without-abortion/]
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