Archives

Monday, January 24, 2011

400-408 – This past Saturday, marked the 38th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision.  Since that 7-2 Supreme Court decision on January 22, 1973, 53 million children have been killed.  CBS News recently reported that 41% of pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) in New York City end in abortion – nearly twice the national rate of 24%.  For African-Americans in New York City, the numbers are even more grim, nearly 6 out of 10 pregnancies end in abortion (59.8%).  According to Planned Parenthood's own figures for 2008, they had an adoption referral rate of only 0.7% of all clients that year – meaning, less than 1% of the time do they successfully counsel a woman to seek an alternative.  As William McGurn asked last week, "As a society, does this figure say anything about the choice between a baby and abortion? Even for those who believe the choice for an abortion belongs to a woman alone and ought to be unfettered by city, state or federal law, is there any ratio such a person would say is too high?"

• CBS News (1/7/2011) NYC's 41% Abortion Rate Riles Religious Leaders.  Archbishop Timothy Dolan Calls Gathering of Clerics, Asks for Efforts to Make Abortions "Rare".

• Rick Santorum (NRO Corner, 1/24/2011) Life Is a Civil Right.  Santorum basically asks, "Why are more blacks not repulsed by the "fetus is not a person" argument?"  This is a civil rights issue.

• William McGurn (WSJ, 1/18/2011) Rising Above Roe v. Wade.  Maybe politics isn't the place to start.

413-423 – • NPR (2009) "All Things Considered".  The host asked women to express their feelings about having had an abortion.  On hand was a therapist-counselor.  What happened next was not what the producers at NPR intended.  The women were expressing regret about their "choice."  And again, this was NPR not KKLA.

(1:20) NPR01:  Here's how the segment started with "Jane" from Miami.

(:12) NPR01A:  (SHORT) Let's back that up; Jane says she doesn't feel it was wrong, but she didn't want to admit it to anyone she knew.

(:45) NPR02:  "Michelle" admits she had an abortion many years ago – and still has not gotten past it.

(1:06) NPR03:  "Laura" from Boston says she was proud of her abortion, but admitted saying so was "callous."

(:59) NPR04:  "David" from Hot Springs, Arkansas.

(:45) NPR05:  "Jennifer" from Charleston, SC, is heartbreaking.

428-437 – Calls – What's your abortion story?

443-452 – Calls – What's your abortion story?

458-508 – Kathleen Eaton, founder-CEO of Birth Choice Health Clinics (birthchoicela.org, 800-631-6254), with locations in Mission Viejo, Placentia, Santa Ana, Long Beach, Orange, Napa, and, their new Mobile Unit that went operational in October (plus they're soon opening new location in Hollywood).  Every 28 seconds a baby is aborted.  77% of women that receive a FREE ultrasound from Birth Choice end up keeping their baby!  This is truly astronomical!!! Birth Choice is THE choice of pro-life organizations like Focus on the Family!

• Join Kathleen and Bruce Wilkinson, author of You Were Born For This and the Prayer of Jabez, at the 30th Anniversary Celebration of Birth Choice at Mariner's Church in Irvine, next Thursday night, February 3rd.  Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, the event is now free to attend!

512-523 – Kathleen Eaton,

528-539 – Calls – What's your abortion story?  Rachelle called in from the Choices Women's Resource Center near Cal Poly Pomona (optionminded.com), to talk about the wonderful abortion recovery Bible study entitled "The Forgiven and Set Free Bible Study."  Just Google "Abortion Recovery" and nearly every ministry listed offers the study. 

544-554 – Calls –

558-608 – •• NRO Editors (1/24/2011) Ho-Hum Horror, Roe at 38.

// Gosnell's Philadelphia clinic's lack of hygiene is not the detail that has captured the most attention, or inspired the most outrage. It turns out that Gosnell frequently, perhaps hundreds of times, fully delivered intact fetuses and then used scissors on the newborn. In his words, he engaged in "snipping" to "ensure fetal demise." In many cases, the fetuses were in the third trimester.

This procedure, sometimes called a "live-birth abortion," is illegal. But not thanks to President Obama. As a state legislator in Illinois, he argued that the law should offer no protection to neonates if they had been delivered before viability. He said that protecting them would violate Roe v. Wade and undermine the right to abortion. What looked like infanticide to most people was for him, it must be inferred, a "private family matter." When Gosnell applied his scissors to pre-viable children, he was, on Obama's terms, merely exercising a cherished freedom.

// A few liberals — notably Supreme Court justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg; also the celebrated intellectual Richard Posner in his role as a judge — made the moral point as well: What difference could it possibly make whether the fetus was partly out of the birth canal when its life was ended? Start with the correct view that location does not matter; add the liberal view that partial-birth abortion is justified whenever an abortionist says so; and it is hard to escape the conclusion that a live-birth abortion is justified whenever an abortionist rules it the safest method of killing.//

• Washington Examiner (1/24/2011) In Philadelphia abortion clinic murders, liberals blame stingy American taxpayers.

612-623 – Calls

628-639 – Calls

644-656 – Calls – a guy called in and said a great guys' recovery ministry is Guys4life.org.

• Politico (1/20/2011) Abortion inserted into repeal effort.

Republicans are turning to abortion as a key as they attempt to replace the Democrats' health reform law.

The high-profile introduction of a Republican anti-abortion bill — just hours after the health repeal vote and prior to any legislation on jobs or economy—has groups on both sides of the issue gearing up for another aggressive fight.

The No Tax-Payer Funding for Abortion Act, introduced Thursday as H.R. 3, aims to codify the Hyde Amendment, which has long barred federal funding for abortion and must currently be renewed every year. The legislation was introduced in tandem with the Protect Life Act, sponsored by Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee Chair Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.), that would specifically bar any federal funding for abortion under the health reform law.

// The high-profile treatment of this taxpayer funding bill has abortion-rights supporters bracing for yet another battle on the Hill.

"This is a very serious threat," Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told POLITICO in a Thursday morning interview. "These folks have just taken office and this is what they're focusing on…Based on what we're seeing, just few days after the start of Congress, we're absolutely ready for a very serious fight."

To be sure, anti-abortion legislation is often introduced with much fanfare only to fizzle in committee, never making it to the House floor. Even the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Bill was introduced last session only to die in committee. //

• Chuck Donovan (Heritage Foundation, 1/19/2011) Obamacare and the Ethics of Life: Weakening Medical Conscience and the Protection of Life.

(1) Section 1303 of ObamaCare facilitates massive federal subsidies for private health care plans that are offered through health insurance exchanges and will cover elective abortions. Under separate law—specifically, the Hyde Amendment to the annual Labor–Health and Human Services (HHS) spending bill—federal funds appropriated to HHS by Congress cannot be spent for health benefits coverage that includes elective abortion. Section 1303 bypasses this limitation.

//  A New Direction

The new Congress should enact permanent and comprehensive conscience protections and replace the current patchwork of federal statutes and annual abortion riders on spending bills with a permanent, government-wide policy. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 5939), introduced by Representatives Chris Smith (R–NJ) and Daniel Lipinski (D–IL) in the 111th Congress, would assure that "no funds authorized or appropriated by federal law, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by federal law, shall be expended for any abortion"  outside the scope of the current Hyde Amendment. By applying conscience protection language to all agencies and programs run by the federal government or by states and localities using federal funds, it would protect both individuals and institutions from any discriminatory act because of their refusal to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortion.

• NYT (1/23/2011) MTV's Naked Calculation Gone Bad.

• Richard Ingram (AFP, 1/23/2011) Climate change: Dogs of law are off the leash.

• Reuters (1/24/2011) Suicide bomber kills 31 at Russia's biggest airport.

• David Gibson (Politics Daily, 1/24/2011) Billy Graham's Regret: 'I Would Have Steered Clear of Politics'.