Alabama Health Board Adopts Some of New Abortion Center Regs
NJ shuts abortion site over health risks ; more details released about unsanitary conditions in the abortion center (update)
Mainstream Media: Pre-term Baby’s Survival Will Have Big Impact on Abortion Debate
National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers
Portugal Parliament Committee Approves Bill to Legalize Abortion
Italian Doctors Try to Save Baby Boy Who Survived Mistaken Abortion
KY Pro-Life Rally Raises Support for Abortion Information Bill
Ukraine Abortions
China Sticking to One-Child Policy
United Nations Committee Criticizes Poland, Colombia, Nicarauga for Prohibiting Abortions
Senate Bill Reintroduced on Pain Unborn Children Feel During Abortion
North Dakota State House Strongly Backs Abortion Ban Trigger Law
Pro-Life Attorney: Roe Abortion Case Can Be Overturned, Don't Give Up
Alabama Health Board Adopts Some of New Abortion Center Regs. On 21Feb07, an Alabama health panel adopted some of the new abortion facility regulations the state health department proposed after it found health and safety problems at abortion business across the state.
The new proposals will take effect 28 March 2007. The regulations, including the yet-to-be approved underlined proposed regulations, may be viewed on the ADPH website at http://www.adph.org/providers/assets/Proposed_amendments_Chapter420_5_1_1.pdf.
The committee did not adopt one proposal regarding backup abortion practitioners saying it needed more discussion.
The key component of the health department's suggestions revolves around a special training program any physician doing abortions in the state must complete.
State Health Officer Don Williamson said the health department, under the new proposal, would only allow someone to do abortions if they received special training from a qualified post-graduate program.
The training would require another certified abortion practitioner to sign off on training and all of the abortions during the program must be done in a hospital rather than a freestanding abortion business.
The State Committee of Public Health adopted the proposal, which becomes effective in 35 days, but put off a vote on whether to require all abortion practitioners in the state to be board eligible or board certified in obstetrics and gynecology.
Williamson said not all doctors who meet that criteria know how to do abortions and he said he would revise language for the committee to consider again in April.
During the debate on the proposals, pro-life groups said they weren't strong enough while abortion activists complained they were too strict.
Larry Rodick, state director of Planned Parenthood, said a requirement in the proposal that abortion practitioners or their backups must be able to do hysterectomies was unfair. Previously they only had to be able to arrange for the procedure with another physician.
he said it would cause some abortion practitioners to "stop services because they wouldn't be able to find the backup doctor that meets those qualifications."
Alabama Alliance Against Abortion president Father James Henderson said the state health department's new guidelines don't go far enough.
"This is not unexpected. What we saw was a watered-down approach where the state health department grudgingly gave in because of their embarrassment over Summit so finally they had to cave in and do something," he said, according to an AP report.
"We'll be back with more strong recommendations. We see that they uncovered a few problems, but we're not convinced that they're going to follow through and enforce the new rules," he added.
The new proposal comes after abortion businesses ran afoul of current rules.
At one abortion center, the abortion practitioner allowed a staff member to illegally gave a woman late in pregnancy the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug.
Another abortion business did not have a backup physician on hand kept inadequate medical records and conducted poor follow-up abortion care.
Earlier this month, abortion practitioner Deborah Lyn Levich, who worked at the Summit Medical Center abortion facility that was permanently closed in June after state health officials found numerous violations, let her medical license expire.
Levich let Janet Onthank King, 58, give the abortion drug to a woman with severely high blood pressure who needed medical attention. The woman later gave birth to a stillborn baby because the dru
g is only allowed for use in the early parts of pregnancy.
At Summit, state health officials said they found "egregious lapses in care, including non-physicians performing abortions, severely underestimating the gestational age of a fetus, failure to appropriately refer or treat a patient with a dangerously elevated blood pressure, and performing an abortion on a late-term pregnancy."
Following the incident, King fabricated the abortion center's records in an attempt to cover up what happened.
Authorities arrested King in December and charged her with misdemeanor charges including performing illegal abortions.
Summit Medical Centers operates seven abortion businesses in five states and has another abortion center in Montgomery, Alabama.
It is the abortion business that employed Malachy Dehenre, who lost his medical license in both Alabama and Mississippi because of botched abortions.
Following the incident at Summit, the state began inspecting the state's other abortion facilities, which led to finding problems at Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery.
The Alabama Department of Health suspended RHS's license in August saying that the abortion business did not have a backup physician on hand kept inadequate medical records and conducted poor follow-up abortion care.
Then, in November, state officials found the Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville violated 10 different health codes.
The state health department found the abortion center put women at risk by having those who called the facility experiencing medical problems after an abortion routed through to the abortion business administrator rather than a doctor.
Women who had serious bleeding or other complications following an abortion were not put in touch with a licensed physician.
Others were sent home early without allowing them any recovery time following the surgery.
The state health department also said the AWCRA abortion center routinely failed to document the gestational age of the unborn child prior to doing the abortion.
[posted 20Feb07, 22Feb07, LifeNews.com, Ertelt, Montgomery, AL]
Health Officials Release Info About New Jersey Abortion Center They Closed New Jersey health officials released more information about why they closed down and Englewood-based abortion business that ran afoul of state health and safety codes. The Metropolitan Medical Associates abortion center is also the place where a botched abortion recently put a woman into a month-long coma.
Health inspectors found dirt and debris throughout the abortion facility, open packages of items that were supposed to remain sterilized before their use, and other problems.
"Two plastic open top bins of sterile forceps, speculum and gauze prep kits are stored directly on the carpeted floor next to the copier in the main office," the report said.
The information came in a report state inspectors gave to the Bergen Record newspaper.
According to the record it received, state officials found forceps encrusted in "brownish blood-like residues" and rusty crochet hooks used in abortions.
They also discovered dark red "dirt and debris" under an exam table that was a quarter-inch thick.
"There was a large dark orangish-yellow stained area, dirt, debris, and syringe caps found under the operating tables in operating rooms #1, 2, 3 and 4," according to the Record. "Employee #2 stated, 'We do not usually move these tables. The housekeeper cleans around the O.R. tables a couple of times a week.'"
The record reveal publicly for the first time why MMA, which does 10,000 abortions annually, was closed after a two-day investigation. The center also failed a follow-up visit last Tuesday and will continue to be shut down until it curbs the problems, state authorities indicated.
Other problems at the abortion center include a failure to institute an infection control plan and a staffer appointed to oversee infection control did not know about the expected responsibilities and did not have appropriate training.
The state also said MMA failed to notify it "of an event occurring within the facility that jeopardized the health and safety of a patient" — referring to Newark resident Rasheedah Dinkins.
She became severely ill following the abortion and was transferred to Beth Israel Medical Center where she needed blood transfusions and had her uterus removed. She also suffered a stroke due to the serious blood loss and had one of her lungs collapse.
Dinkins said her mother and hospital officials told her she died en route to the medical facility from the abortion center but medical personnel were able to revive her.
"I was laying in my bed and I got the cold shakes," Dinkins, who filed a lawsuit against the abortion facility last week, said about her ordeal. "My body kept going numb. After that, I don't remember anything."
This is only the second time state health officials ordered one of the state's 650 ambulatory health centers closed but the second time MMA has been shut down. It was temporarily closed after health and safety violations in 1993.
Dinkins isn't the only woman who had an abortion at MMA and experienced problems.
Gloria Mozas of Cliffside Park is also suing the abortion center saying staff there misdiagnosed a tubal pregnancy and told her she miscarried the baby when she was actually pregnant with twins.
She told AP an abortion practitioner there did an abortion on her and told her he was just removing dead tissue. B ut a week later she had to undergo a medical procedure to remove the babies who had implanted into her fallopian tubes, causing her severe internal bleeding.
"I've been waiting for those doors to be locked for 3 1/2 years," she told AP.
[14March07, Ertelt, LifeNews.com, Trenton, NJ]
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NJ shuts abortion clinic over health risks The NJ Health Department investigated conditions at Metropolitan Medical Associates in Englewood and state health officials have shut down one of New Jersey's largest abortion centers after finding violations at an Englewood clinic that posed "immediate and serious risk of harm to patients." Metropolitan Medical Associates will remain closed until it corrects the deficiencies that prompted the closure, state officials said. State reports show the clinic performs more than 10,000 abortions a year.
The shutdown order cited problems "including but not limited to infection control, instruments, equipment used for sterilization of patient care use items and the processing of equipment." The Department of Health and Senior Services refused to release the detailed list of violations to the public until the clinic has an opportunity to dispute the findings and the state issues its final report.
An order to halt medical services is extremely rare. This is only the second time in the last five years that the department has closed one of the state's 619 ambulatory-care facilities for "deficient care," said health department spokesman Nathan Rudy.
The state's two-day investigation of Metropolitan Medical was spurred by a complaint filed last week by Newark Beth Israel Medical Center after its emergency room treated a woman for complications following her abortion at the clinic, according to two sources close to the investigation. The hospital told the state it was concerned the abortion may have been done improperly, the sources said.
Newark Beth Israel officials declined to comment. Metropolitan Medical also did not answer inquiries for comment.
This is not the first time the Engle Street clinic has been forced to close because of infection control problems, Rudy said. For a short time, the state barred the clinic from providing care back in 1993.
Metropolitan Medical, which has operated in Englewood since the mid-1970s, is one of a handful of clinics in the state that perform not only first-trimester abortions but second-trimester terminations, as well — up to the 24th week of pregnancy.
It is a frequent target of antiabortion protests and has been the subject of lawsuits over just how far protesters can go to block access to a clinic. In the past, protesters have chained themselves together and lain down in front of its entrance. These days, they hold regular prayer vigils.
The state has ordered the clinic to hire an infection control consultant and an administrative consultant, both of whom must be approved by the state and must be at the clinic "no less than 40 hours per week."
The consultants "shall have full authority to review, revise, if necessary, and implement all facility policies and procedures, particularly those related to administration, infection control, sterilization, housekeeping, emergency procedures, quality assurance policies and procedures and the overall practices of the facility." The consultants must submit weekly written reports to the state health department.
In the meantime, the clinic is redirecting patients to other local abortion facilities, including Women's Choice in Hackensack, which has the same owners as Metropolitan Medical.
The clinic is also telling callers that it will reopen next Tuesday. The state, however, is making no promises. "We will rescind the order once the major violations are taken care of and a plan of corrections, approved by the department, is in place," said Rudy. "And we do follow-up inspections to make sure all violations have been abated."
New Jersey statutes provide for penalties of up to $2,500 for each day that violations related to patient care are not corrected.
The clinic, meanwhile, is doing its best to downplay its troubles. Asked by a caller why the clinic was closed, the receptionist said only: "Everything's fine. We're just doing a little renovation." [28Feb07, Bergen Record, [email protected]] [8March07, Ertelt, LifeNews.com Englewood, NJ]
After Comatose Victim, Two More Women Injured At New Jersey Abortion Mill Come Forward
ENGLEWOOD, NJ, March 6, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com/Operation Rescue) – Two more women have come forward and told of their life-threatening abortion injuries at Metropolitan Medical Associates since news broke last week of the clinic's closure in response to a botched abortion on 20-year old Rasheedah Dinkins that left her comatose for four weeks and unable to bear any more children. Metropolitan is one of the largest abortion mills in New Jersey, and is affiliated with the National Abortion Federation.
One of the women, Gloria Mozas, 36, is suing Metropolitan for an abortion she had in 2003. Mozas alleges that abortionist Nicholas Kotopoulos misdiagnosed her condition of heterotopic pregnancy, in which one baby had implanted in the uterus and another in the fallopian tube. Pregnancies located in the fallopian tubes are life-threatening conditions.
Kotopoulos told Mozas that she was not pregnant, but required a D&C to remove "dead tissue" from a failed pregnancy. During a follow-up visit, Mozas sneaked a look at her medical records and learned that the D&C, which she endured without anesthesia, had killed her live baby.
Mozas' tubal pregnancy later ruptured and she was transported to a local hospital for emergency surgery.
"What happened to me lasted 10 days and I could have died every single day," Mozas told reporters. She had very much wanted her pregnancy and did not realize until later that Metropolitan was an abortion mill. Mozas now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"A zoo is better than this place," she said. "I'm asking the state, I'm asking the governor, I'm asking whoever it takes, to never open these doors again."
A second woman, Christina Ruvolo, 23, tearfully told a New Jersey newspaper that she had an abortion at Metropolitan in May and suffered from an incomplete abortion.
"They didn't finish it," Ruvolo told a reporter. "There was a part of the baby inside."
Ruvolo said she tried to talk with one of the doctors about her complications, but no one would listen to her. She was later taken to a local hospital where the rest of her baby was removed.
"I didn't know that I could take legal action against them. I feel so guilty. If I knew I could have sued, maybe this wouldn't have happened to [Dinkins]," Ruvolo said. Dinkins has filed a malpractice suit against the abortion mill and two abortionists, Keith Gresham and Nicholas Kotopoulos.
Ruvolo has since tried to obtain her medical records, but was told that the clinic is closed.
"Ms. Mozas and Ms. Ruvolo have been shockingly abused by Metropolitan. Unf
ortunately, this kind of treatment is more common throughout the abortion cartel than is reported. Women need to know when they walk into an abortion clinic in America, they risk their health and their lives," said Operation Rescue spokesperson Cheryl Sullenger.
"The abortion cartel is a predatory business that profits from human tragedy and leaves the women to pick up the pieces. For example, while Metropolitan was supposedly closed, it was open enough to be answering phones and referring abortion business to their sister clinic – operated by the same people that seriously hurt these three women – but not open enough to give women access to their medical records," said Sullenger.
"It is obvious that this abortion chop-shop has a lot they are trying to hide and much to answer for," Sullenger said. "Metropolitan should never be allowed to reopen."
Operation Rescue is urging the public to contact the New Jersey Department of Health, Division of Health Care Quality and Oversight at [email protected] and ask them to keep Metropolitan Medical Associates closed permanently.
Mainstream Media: Pre-term Baby’s Survival Will Have Big Impact on Abortion Debate. The survival of pre-term baby Amillia Taylor, at 21 weeks gestation the youngest know child to survive premature birth, has produced an increase in media debate on the abortion issue.
Mainstream media outlets in the United States have acknowledged that the baby’s life raises “big questions” about legal abortion, . Weighing less than 10oz and just nine ½ inches long, Amillia was born one month earlier than the date considered viable for most babies, 25 weeks. About half of the babies born at 25 weeks will survive. Abortion laws are often based on an assumption of viability, with the cut-off being set at the point where babies would be likely to survive outside the womb.
ABC anchor Charles Gibson made the account of Amillia’s survival the top story on World News Tuesday night, calling the baby, “A tiny miracle that raises big questions in the debate over abortion, ” according to a blog report by Brent Baker posted on NewsBusters.com Feb.20.
“The fact that she has survived and grown to more than four pounds, and is about to go home, is a miracle, yes, but a miracle that may have an effect on the debate over abortion. And it may change what people think about life.”
Dan Harris, pro-abortion reporter for ABC, pointed out that in most of the country, Amillia could have been legally aborted well past the point of her birth.
“Only one state, North Carolina, explicitly prohibits aborting a fetus at the point at which Amillia was born; 12 states permit abortion at that point; 23 states leave it to a doctor to decide whether the fetus is viable; and in 14 states, there are no laws on the books that would prevent such an abortion.”
Tony Perkins, with the Family Research Council, was interviewed by ABC for the story. “As we see, with the advancement of medical technology, we have children surviving outside the womb younger and younger,” Perkins said. “It really brings into focus how valuable and how precious this human life really is.”
Now weighing a healthy four lbs, Amillia is due to be released from hospital within the next few days. Apart from some respiratory and digestive difficulties, her doctors said she has done remarkably well.
“She told us early on from the start that she was a fighter and she wanted to be here,” said Dr. William Smalling from the Baptist Children’s Hospital in Kendall, Florida.
Comments posted on Newsbusters pointed out that at 35 weeks from conception, Amillia is still three weeks from her natural birth date and could legally be aborted in many states if she had remained in her mother‘s womb.
See full coverage posted on NewsBusters.com:
http://newsbusters.org/node/10954
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
“Non-viable” Baby Girl Survives Birth at 21 Weeks, Weighing Under 10oz
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/feb/07022003.html
[22Feb07, Gudrun Schultz, Florida, LifeSiteNews.com]
ABC News Recognizes Premature Baby's Birth Could Change Abortion Views. ABC's World News led Tuesday night (20Feb) with an unusual spin, one favorable to conservatives: the survival of a baby born in Florida last October just 21 weeks and six days after conception, the least time ever spent in the womb by an infant who has survived. Anchor Charles Gibson teased: “A tiny miracle that raises big questions in the debate over abortion."
Setting up his top story, Gibson acknowledged the impact on the abortion debate: “The fact that she has survived and grown to more than four pounds, and is about to go home, is a miracle, yes, but a miracle that may have an effect on the debate over abortion. And it may change what people think about life.” Reporter Dan Harris soon outlined how “anti-abortion activists” are using her: "For her parents, Amillia's story is a personal and emotional one. But for anti-abortion activists, Amillia is a national poster child. Today they promised to hold her up as an example in future debates over restricting abortion.”
Leading into a soundbite from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Harris noted that “only one state, North Carolina, explicitly prohibits aborting a fetus as the point at which Amillia was born.” Harris, however, countered Perkins by stressing how “bio-ethicists we spoke with today argue that Amillia is a miracle baby, and that it's unwise to change public policy based on miracles."[22Feb07, LifeNews.com #3968, by Brent Baker]
The National Abortion Federation (NAF) is calling on Americans to recognize March 10 as a National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers. Millions of women–and unborn children–have little to be thankful for. One in particular, Rasheedah Dinkins, is still recovering from a botched abortion procedure that nearly killed her. Dinkins' complications started when her clinic, Metropolitan Medical Association (MMA) in New Jersey, failed to supply even the most basic medical necessities–clean surgical instruments. Two weeks after its closure, MMA assured the state health department that the sterilization issues had been addressed. Yet when officials visited the clinic Tuesday, they found that it still flunked the health inspection, leaving women vulnerable
to serious risks. In Illinois, legislators are trying to give minor girls access to facilities like this one without their parents' consent. Contrary to its name, the Adolescent Health Care Safety Act would allow clinics to inform a teenager's siblings, relatives, doctors, or pastors about the procedure in lieu of her parents. In a world where doctors could lose their license for operating on a child's appendix without consent, a bill like this is shocking. It undermines parents' role–and rights–in preserving the well-being of their daughters. Pro-life measures are fairing better in Oklahoma. With the help of the Oklahoma Family Policy Council, the state's Judiciary Committee passed bills on Tuesday that would: limit government funding of abortion, restrict health insurance from covering abortion procedures, ensure that women have information on abortion alternatives and risks, explain that abortion drugs kill unborn children, and require parental consent for minors.
Additional Resources
The Third Annual Abortion Practitioner of the Year Awards
Oklahoma House Committee Passes Five Pro-Life Bills Limiting Abortions
[8Mar07 Family Research Council]
PORTUGAL PARLIAMENT COMMITTEE APPROVES BILL TO LEGALIZE ABORTION. As observers expected it would do, a committee within the Portuguese parliament has approved legislation that would legalize abortion in this Western European nation. The panel gave initial approval to the bill yesterday and was expected to finalize the measure today. The bill follows the February defeat of an abortion referendum on the nation's ballot. It would legalize all abortions within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The measure also includes a three day waiting period between the request for an abortion and the performance of one. Some 58 percent of those voting said they favored making abortion legal but the vote didn't count because half of the European nation's voters needed to participate. Examined another way, just 26.2 percent of Portuguese voters backed legalizing abortion. It marked the second time the nation's citizens defeated an attempt to legalize abortions. Following the vote, Prime Minister Jose Socrates said he would push for a bill in the nation's legislature to legalize abortion. In the committee, Socrates' ruling Socialist Party joined with members of the Communist Party, the Left Block and the Green Party to support legalizing abortion. [9Mar07, LifeNews.com, Portugal]
ITALIAN DOCTORS TRY TO SAVE BABY BOY WHO SURVIVED MISTAKEN ABORTION. Doctors in Italy are furiously working to save the life of a baby boy who was born alive after he survived an abortion that should never have happened. The boy was slated to become the victim of an abortion but physicians realized they had misdiagnosed a physical deformity. Doctors at the teaching hospital Careggi performed two ultrasounds on the boy and his mother and they said he had a defective esophagus. That's a disorder that surgery could have corrected after birth in some cases. However, when they went to abort the baby boy, the discovered he was healthy and desperate tried to resuscitate him. The baby, born at 22 weeks into pregnancy, weighed 500 grams (less than 18 ounces) at birth but physicians say that he had a brain hemorrhage during the abortion and they doubt he will survive. The boy was transferred to the city's children's hospital because Careggi didn't have room for follow-up care in the intensive care unit. Hospital officials are defending the doctors saying their physicians advised the mother to have further diagnostic tests but that she opted for the abortion after consulting with a private doctor. [9Mar07, LifeNews.com, Florence, Italy]
KY Pro-Life Rally Raises Support for Abortion Information Bill. A rally sponsored by Kentucky Right to Life at the state capitol on Tuesday featured a large crowd, a woman who had an abortion and regretted her decision, and promoted a bill in the state legislature to help reduce abortions further. Kathy Rutledge was an 18 year-old high school senior when she had an abortion and now she wishes she could undo the decision.
Rutledge, now 47, heads the state affiliate of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign and she told the pro-life crowd that abortion isn't a decision made lightly and spoke of the "broken hearts" of the women like her who have had abortions and regret their decision. "Abortion isn't only a legal matter," Rutledge said, according to the Louisville Courier Journal. "It's a matter of the heart.'' She also said it's a decision that, while abortion is still legal, should be one where women get as much information as possible ab out its risks and alternatives. A bill in the state legislature would do just that. Kentucky already has an informed consent law that has helped women avoid abortions but Senate Bill 179, sponsored by Sen. Katie Stine, a Republican, would tighten up the law by doing more to make sure women get the information. It would require that women get the abortion information in person rather than over the telephone, as the law stands now. [22Feb07, LifeNews.com #3968, Frankfort, KY LifeNews.com]
UKRAINE ABORTIONS.You may have seen the BBC story in December on Ukraine maternity hospital suspected of killing babies for stem cells – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm.
There was an additional story in the UK Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/17/wbaby17.xml
CHINA STICKING TO ONE-CHILD POLICY. China will not loosen its one-child policy, despite a top family planning official's acknowledgment 23Jan07 that it was partly to blame for a worsening problem of too many boy babies and not enough girls in the world's most populous nation.
In 2005, some 118 boys were born in China for every 100 girls. In some regions, the figure has hit 130 boys for every 100 girls; the average for industrialized countries is between 104 and 107 boys for every 100 girls.
Zhang Weiqing, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said the government is committed to solving gender imbalance within 10 to 15 years with education campaigns, punishments for sex-selective abortions and rewards, like retirement pensions, for parents who have girls. [23Jan07, AP, Olexen, DiLorenzo, Beijing, http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/23/D8MR75BG4.html]
UNITED NATIONS COMMITTEE CRITICIZES POLAND FOR PROHIBITING ABORTIONS. A United Nations committee has unduly criticized the nations for prohibiting most abortions. CFAM [organization that lobbies at the UN] said CEDAW committee members questioned the governments on access to abortion. In the group's Friday Fax publication, it reported that committee members criticized the nation for allowing a conscience clause for physicians who don't want to do abortions. The committee also questioned the Polish representative about illegal abortions in the nation. According to CFAM's report, the Polish official said that "every abortion is a tragedy" and said the biggest problem is the ability to provide support for single women who are pregnant. He said that need, not abortion, was the biggest question to address. The European Union and the United Nations have put pressure on Poland to change its pro-life laws and abortion advocates previously anchored an abortion boat outside the country to do abortions just outside Polish waters. The CEDAW committee is reviewing the laws of other nations, including the pro-life nations of Colombia, Nicaragua, and Peru. [21Jan07, Ertelt, LifeNews.com; 19Jan07, CFAM and Human Rights Institute – http://www.c-fam.org]
SENATE BILL REINTRODUCED ON PAIN UNBORN CHILDREN FEEL DURING ABORTION. Brownback [R- KS running for president] reintroduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, which requires the pain information be given to women contemplating an abortion 20 weeks after fertilization. “It is a scientific, medical fact that unborn children feel pain,” Brownback said in a statement. “We know that unborn children can experience pain based upon anatomical, functional, physiological and behavioral indicators that are correlated with pain in children and adults. Mothers seeking an abortion have the right to know that their unborn children can feel pain.” The bill also includes a provision allowing women to ask for anesthesia for the baby so he/she doesn't suffer any pain during an abortion. With abortion advocates now in control of Congress bills like Brownback's may not get a hearing or a debate and vote. [24Jan07, DC LifeNews.com]
NORTH DAKOTA STATE HOUSE STRONGLY BACKS ABORTION BAN TRIGGER LAW. The North Dakota state House approved a measure that would prohibit most abortions, leaving it legal only in extremely rare cases when it might be necessary to save the life of the mother. The legislation, known as a trigger law, would go into effect once the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. The House voted 61-26 to pass a measure (HB 1466) which would charge anyone who does an abortion with a five year prison term and a $5,000 fine. The bill would also give parents of pregnant minors and partners of pregnant women the right to file suit to stop an abortion. Rep. James Kerzman, a Democrat, is the primary sponsor of the measure and he said unborn children must be protected in all circumstances, even if a pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. "My parents raised me to accept all life, and I have never questioned that," he told the Bismarck Tribune newspaper. Other states are considering trigger laws as well, including Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma and Utah. [1Feb07, Bismarck, ND, LifeNews.com]
PRO-LIFE ATTORNEY: ROE ABORTION CASE CAN BE OVERTURNED, DON'T GIVE UP. Ending the darkness of Roe v. Wade is not only possible, it is more than likely to occur if those who understand what's at stake don't give up, having tired of the seemingly long battle.
For, as social-reform movements go, the 34-year struggle to overturn Roe and its judicial progeny is still a relatively young one.
The lessons of the long struggle for black civil rights are instructive.
From the advent of the first African slave being taken to the American colonies in 1619 to the end of the Civil War was a period of 246 years.
The cause for life is, in comparison, only 34 years old.
The ratification of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in 1865 to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 was a period of approximately 100 years.
We who fight for life having been laboring for only one-third as long.
From the announcement in 1896 by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" public accommodations for blacks and whites was constitutional to the reversal of that decision by the same Supreme Court in 1954 in the Brown v. Board of Education case was a period of 58 years – almost a quarter of a century longer than our present struggle.
The period from the Civil Rights Act in 1964 to the present is approximately 42 years, eight years longer than we have presently struggled.
The lesson is that American social-reform movements sometimes take time.
We will win the battle to overturn Roe if we do not lose heart. But as we maintain a long-term vision, we must also come to terms with today's brutal facts.
The numbers are staggering and so, sometimes, is the temptation to despair. As we soberly mark the 34th anniversary of the judicial atrocity known as Roe v. Wade, the sheer number of innocent victims of that act of judicial tyranny overwhelms our everyday experience.
Even under the most conservative of estimates (and we lack certainty because we do not have a national, uniform mandatory abortion reporting requirement), somewhere between 40 and 50 million unborn children have died under this nation's regime of abortion.
To put that number in some context, the best estimate is that the total war dea
d, of all causes, for all of America's major and minor wars since 1775 is 1,329,991 or an amount equal to just one year of Roe's infernal tally.
It is true that a prudent, incremental strategy of judicial, legislative, and public media efforts, including test cases, test legislation, and consistent public education, have led to noticeable gains in reducing the number of abortions and educating the public (and perhaps, soon, ending the legal support of partial-birth infanticide). However, the relentless daily, monthly, and annual toll of unborn lives lost, mothers and fathers physically and emotionally devastated, and cultural and political disunity of the country, leads many to wonder if the fight, after so many years of battling, is really winnable.
Can we honestly expect things to change when so many lives have been lost, so many families affected, so many legal battles and legislative arguments made and ignored, so much money spent and so many years of our lives gone by?
The answer is a resounding "yes." Positive signs are all around us.
The ever more detailed pictures of unborn babies in the womb manifest their humanity in ways that only the most hardened can deny. More young adults and high school students are pro-life than ever before. The accumulating weight of serious medical studies details the truth conclusively that abortion, in addition to killing her unborn child, is harmful to the woman who subjects herself to it.
On the legal front there are also hopeful signs. In addition to new principled justices, at no time in the last 34 years has the Supreme Court ever found a solid constitutional basis for the so-called "right to terminate a pregnancy." Combine this with the equally revealing, albeit maddening, point that the Supreme Court conceded in the Casey decision 19 years after Roe – that no single constitutional argument standing alone could buttress the "right" to abort (i.e., without the added legal doctrine of stare decisis abortion jurisprudence is a house of cards) – and the overturning of Roe is inevitable.
Ultimately, the realization that the radical ideology behind the abortion industry is bankrupt morally, culturally, economically, and spiritually will lead to the collapse of the current abortion regime, just as surely as the deadly decay and false reality of Marxism led to the fall of the Soviet Union. All this is the good news if we just keep up the struggle. [24Jan07, DC LifeNews.com, by Nikolas T. Nikas]