Pro-life

Here is a surprising article from the New York Times that reportedly even appeared on the front page.

BOWIE, Md., Jan. 26 – Sixteen months ago, Andrea Brown, 24 years old and unmarried, was desperate for an abortion, fearing the disappointment of her parents and the humiliation she might face.

While frantically searching the telephone book one day, she came across the Bowie Crofton Pregnancy Center and Medical Clinic, a church-financed organization that provides counseling and education about sexual abstinence. The receptionist told Ms. Brown that the clinic did not perform abortions or make referrals but that she could come in for an ultrasound to make sure her six-and-a-half-week pregnancy was viable. When she did, everything changed.

"When I had the sonogram and heard the heartbeat – and for me a heartbeat symbolizes life – after that there was no way I could do it," Ms. Brown said recently as she revisited the clinic and watched her daughter, Elora, now 9 months old, play at her feet.

In the battle over abortion, opponents say they have discovered a powerful new tool: sonograms. And over the last 18 months, they have started major fund-raising campaigns to outfit Christian crisis pregnancy centers with ultrasound equipment.

Even more amazing is that they put a cute picture of her nine month old daughter with the story. The story also included this piece of information about what happened there last week.

Places like the Bowie center are a front line in the struggle over abortion, and the clinic reported to the police that on the eve of the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision last month, its windows were smashed and it was spray painted with graffiti saying "Choice."

Such centers, many financed by churches and church groups, try to persuade women through counseling to carry their pregnancies to term, and often provide prenatal care and pregnancy tests and sometimes clothing and supplies.

Supporters of abortion rights say that a large number of the centers lure women by leaving the impression that they do, in fact, perform abortions and subsequently do not give young women a full picture of their choices.

"Generally, their treatment of women who come in is coercive," said Susanne Martinez, vice president of public policy at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "From the time they walk in to these centers, they are inundated with information that is propaganda and that has one goal in mind. And that is to have women continue with their pregnancies."

Most centers still do not have ultrasound machines. But at those that do, the results of performing sonograms have been startling, abortion opponents say. A survey by the Heidi Group, a Christian evangelical nonprofit organization that advises such centers on fund-raising and administration, found that those using counseling alone reported persuading 70 percent of women considering abortion to abandon the idea. In centers with ultrasound machines, that number jumped to 90 percent, said Carol Everett, the group’s chief executive. Such statistics could not be independently verified.

One interesting fact about how ultrasound machines is how they came to be more prevalent. Initially crisis pregnancy centers were unlicensed clinics that were unable to offer any medical services. Because pro-abortion activist complained about these unlicensed clinics offering counseling, many of these clinics sought accreditation and became licensed. With a license they were then able to offer medical services such as ultrasounds so this is a ironic and excellent consequence of pro-abortion activists.

It is not hard to expose the lie of "choice." The verbiage they use would outwardly appear that the two options of choice, abortion or having the child, are equally weighted. We often hear about how we need to make abortion more rare and yet when women choose to have their child some Planned Parenthood spokesman must tell us why it is bad. I can see why they are panicking over crisis pregnancy centers. Success rates of 70 percent with counseling or 90 percent with both counseling and ultrasounds must scare them, especially as they look at their financial bottom line.

It is also rather ironic of PP’s spokesman to accuse crisis pregnancy centers of counseling with only one goal in mind. In those cases where there "counseling" does not lead to an abortion they have zero services to offer a women needing financial or medical help to have a child. Annie of After Abortion commented on a post at another blog on the question does PP offer enough options for counseling.She showed the numbers of PP 2002-3 report showing that PP has actually decreased the numbers of referrals for adoptions services and has in fact increased the amount of abortions they do.

NARAL weighs in with their own disillusional reply.

"With or without ultrasound," Ms. Keenan said, "women understand the moral dimensions of their choices."

Yeah this is why PP and NARAL have lobbied states to toughen the requirements for the use of ultrasounds.

The whole article is worth reading and this would be a welcome model of abortion reporting from the NYT where actually pro-lifers are allowed to speak for themselves. It of course includes replies by pro-abortion supporters, but their arguments seem really vapid in comparison with what these clinics are actually doing. They still can’t bring themselves to saying pro-life instead of anti-abortion, though the article is at least progress and I hope it might be a trend. Not holding my breath though.

A few days after the Democrats’ November defeat, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings suggested that the party needed a "come to Jesus" moment.

His colleagues seem to have taken him literally. Former Indiana Representative Tim Roemer, who is running for chairman of the Democratic Party, could be heard arguing that "Jesus talks more about the concern for the poor" than he talks about gays and abortions." [Source]

So this is who the Democrat’s tout as being pro-life. Somebody who can not properly order the preferential treatment of the poor with abortion. I guess it is no surprise that politician are not apt theologians, but to use the argument of what Jesus mentions in the Gospels as how to order a legislative agenda shows a deep misunderstanding. To go by this standard they would have to drop incest, rape, minimum wage laws since they didn’t warrant Gospel mentions either. If Roemer does become DNC chair it will probably be much like pro-life Harry Reid whose first act as Minority leader was to rip Justice Thomas, one of the few pro-life judges on the court.

Gloria Feldt has resigned from Planned Parenthood and Moloch submits his resume.

From Kathy Jean. Lopez at the Corner.

Of course, the abortion lobby shouldn’t be worried about their gal Hill. In the NYTimes piece today, for instance, there is this: "In response, two of Mrs. Clinton’s aides qualified her support for parental notification laws, saying she preferred an approach like New York’s, which does not require minors seeking abortions to tell their parents, but does provide them with information about their medical options. "

So she supports parental notification as long as it does not involve parental notification?

Wow this sounds a lot like Kerry’s statement on support for funding the war. I voted for parental notification before I voted against it.

The was a "clarification" by staffers because some pro-abortion types were concerned about what Hillary said

"I think so," Mrs. Clinton said. "I’m only speaking for myself. This is what I have advocated and believed for a very long time." She added, "I supported parental notification with a judicial bypass," referring to legal exceptions in which a judge gives a minor permission to get an abortion without informing her parents.

JoAnn M. Smith, president of Family Planning Advocates, said yesterday that she called Mrs. Clinton’s staff members after the senator’s remarks because some people within her organization were concerned. She asserted, however, that it was not a widespread feeling within her group.

Then there was this rant against parental notification.

"Parental notification is something that we are particularly concerned about in New York State," said Carla M. Goldstein, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of New York City, which works with and helps finance Family Planning Advocates. "Reporters and the general public really need to understand the dangers of parental notification. Judicial bypass can end up creating a much later-stage pregnancy."

Parents becoming aware that their child is seeking a surgery that will result in the death of their grandchild and can lead to physical and psychological complications for their daughter is so very dangerous to them. Dangerous that is to their bottom line of providing abortions. Notice also by mentioning judicial bypass they are assuming the cases where the parents would object. What an amazing society that we live in when people can openly support keeping the parents in the dark. That to circumvent parental authority is not seen as problematic in the least. Many others have mentioned the incongruities where a public school can’t give a child an aspirin for a headache and yet have no problems with packing them off for abortions.

Some abortion rights advocates expressed other concerns yesterday. Barbara de Leeuw, a Family Planning Advocates board member, praised Mrs. Clinton’s speech overall but said she was "a little disappointed" that the senator did not speak more about "abstinence plus," a term for sexual education programs that provide both abstinence counseling and health-conscious advice for sexually active people.

Abstinence plus? I haven’t heard that one before, but I am not surprised that they are working at ways to undermine what abstinence education programs there are. Maybe I will come up with a new program I can sell to the government called DARE Plus. Along with the drug abstinence program I would also promote health conscious advice for chemically promiscuous students. Hey don’t do drugs but if you do here are some nice clean needles and some chemical kits to ensure the quality of what you are buying. Teach kids to make safer drug deals and to plan ahead to escape safely if it goes bad. DARE Plus can even get a new mascot like perhaps a Lion with white powder dripping from his nose or visible needle tracks.

The Fact Is is reporting that the infamous Francis Kissling who is the president of Catholics for A Free Choice
is endorsing Sen. Brownback’s "The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act” (S.51)"
.

The purpose of the bill is to alleviate the pain of the unborn child, which is severe, and very obviously to focus the mother’s and the public’s attention on fetal pain. We truly hope that Kissling’s seeming endorsement is a positive step and not just a cynical ploy.

I have prayed each day for years for God’s blessings upon Frances and her colleagues. I have said for years that Frances Kissling would make a wonderful spokesman for the Church if only she came to accept all Church teachings. We should all pray that she comes to accept the Church and all of her teachings. Maybe this is a step.

I join with them in his hope but my inner cynic is deeply suspicious. Kissling writes:

It is hard to understand why the senator, who is opposed to legal abortion except in the most extreme circumstances, is introducing legislation that will result in anti abortion terms in tacit cooperation with an “evil” act (abortion). We thus have some concern that the bill is not a genuine attempt to alleviate fetal suffering.

The bill’s sponsors Sen. Brownback and Rep. Chris Smith are not hiding the fact that they want to move towards protecting all the unborn from abortion but in the meantime efforts like this serve the dual purpose of informing mothers of the pain that will be incurred on their child and to alleviate the pain of the child if she goes through with the abortion.

Smith called the measure a "very modest effort." He said he looks forward to a day when the unborn are protected by the law, but in the meantime, "Shame on us if we do not take immediate measures to relieve the pain" of babies who are aborted.

Abortion clinics are "not only killing mills, but they are torture chambers," Smith said. [Source]

In her statement the word "unborn child" only appears in the name of the bill and out of necessity the word fetus is used throughout. Kissling continues:

Nonetheless, Catholics for a Free Choice’s principles in regard to abortion include both respect for a woman’s right to choose abortion and a commitment to treating fetuses with respect. We support existing regulations regarding scientific experiments that codify that respect for human tissue, embryos, fetuses and human persons. And so we will take the senator at his word that his intention in this bill is not to ban abortion or frighten women, but to show compassion for the fetus.

"that codify that respect for human tissue, embryos, fetuses and human persons" This is the same old semantic game where in each category they are actually talking about a human person and try to treat them as something different. She then goes on with her objections to the bill.

We are not absolutely opposed to some form of legislation on this matter and we urge Senator Brownback to amend his legislation so that it might truly show respect for fetuses, women and health professionals. Among our suggestions are:

1. A provision for payment of the costs associated with administering fetal anesthesia. The senator must understand that if such funds are not made available, the chances that a woman can afford this service are slim. Fetuses will not receive anesthesia if the senator does not fund the service.
2. The elimination of a mandated speech to be read by doctors. Every woman is a unique person, different from every other. She should be approached by doctors and other health professionals in a compassionate manner, at a time that is conducive to her receiving information and in words attuned to her level of insight, interest and knowledge. Additionally, the senator’s requirement for intrusive forms of written acknowledgment needs modification. Written informed consent is important but also requires careful crafting.

So in effect she wants the government (meaning us) to pay the costs of a unborn child a anesthesiologist in which she knows will not happen. She is also against a mandated speech given to all women. Again she knows without a prepared statement that doctors will fudge the details. Can we really expect a doctor who is willing to be an abortionist tell the customer the details of child development and their feeling of pain? So looking at her opposition it shows that her support for the bill that will be passed is not real. Her support for a bill of this type would have to be as toothless as an octagerian with severe gum disease.

There are currently a small number of Fetal Anesthesiologists but those who are trained in this field are working toward diagnoses and treatment of children in the womb and not as executioner assistants. Though historically there have always been those who provided some form of anesthesia to those being executed. Jesus was offered myrrh for anesthesia, though he refused it. In this case though it would most likely be the abortion doctor and not a trained anesthesiologist who would administer it. It is bad enough that we have the corruption of the medical field with abortion doctors and we don’t want any more trained professional in this horrible field.

By the way, "The Thing Is" is a very good blog and online magazine covering news and opinion on social policy.

Moloch is back blogging and has some commentary on NARAL’s Pro-Choice America campaign.

I have been thinking more about Sen. Hillary’s seemingly conciliatory tones towards pro-lifers and the move by other Democrats in the same vein. I think that their efforts totally misunderstands why pro-lifers are against abortion. They obviously understand that the whole-hearted support of abortion is not playing very well on the majority of the public and they need to get with the "values thing." Their emphasis has been on plans on how to reduce the number of abortions through both education and contraceptives. They think that simply reducing the number of abortions is a perfectly good compromise. This proves their misunderstanding.

Say for instance a plan was put forward to legalize murder. At the same time the plan would be to increase education on why people should abstain from murdering or the government providing less lethal weapons to criminals so that they might only stun you in the commission of a robbery. They would rightly argue that you can never legalize murder since it was always wrong and it would be ridiculous to believe that legalized murder would cause murder rates to go down by relying only on education and less lethal weapons. Yet this is the very approach in which they think they can appease pro-life voters.

If some lawmakers proposed to eliminate all penalties for racial discrimination and proposed instead to increase funding of classroom efforts at reducing racism again they would rightly see this as wrong. Would they accept any proposal that only worked towards reducing racism to some supposedly acceptable level? Instinctively they would understand that whatever behavior you legalize you end up with more of.

Murder, racism, and abortion are always wrong and the civil law should match up to this reality. Before Roe v. Wade the abortion rate (even with the most wildly inflated figures) was nowhere near the abortion rate now. Sure the abortion rate has started to level off with some decline but a life is a life and the fight against abortion must go on whether there are 4,000, 400, or 4 abortions in the US a day. As a side note I also wonder if the abortion rate has flattened out because there has been such a reduction in the population that there just simply are less people available of child bearing age to have abortions.

Now of course as pro-lifers we can work with measures to seek to reduce abortion and that this isn’t an all or nothing proposition. Yet we know our goal is to ultimately both to illegalize abortion and to help to change the society so that women will not want to seek abortions. This can be done in ways such as parental consent laws, informed consent laws, abstinence education (without the pollution of sexual moral relativism), and working to consistently promote the value of all life at all stages of life. Some Democrats talk a good game right now but I don’t see the majority of them supporting any kind of restriction even if it is just a matter of telling the women the medical complications of abortion. I guess we will find out when the bills on fetal pain and banning adults from helping pregnant minors cross state lines to circumvent abortion laws come to a vote.

In response to an ad taken out in the Washington Times by the American Life League that showed photos of the 72 Catholic representatives and senators who support abortion.

Schwarz, a surgeon, said recently that he favors keeping abortion legal. "I don’t believe that women’s reproductive choices should be made by middle-aged men," he added.

But I guess it was fine for a bunch of middle-aged men in the form of the Supreme Court in 1973 to decide that abortion was in the Constitution. This is what passes for a reasoned argument in support of abortion?

In an article in the NYT where Sen. Clinton is attempting to by more sympathetic to pro-lifers.

Mrs. Clinton, in a speech to about 1,000 abortion rights supporters at the state Capitol, firmly restated her support for the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, Roe v. Wade. But then she quickly shifted gears, offering warm words to opponents of abortion – particularly members of religious groups – asserting that there was "common ground" to be found after three decades of emotional and political warfare over abortion.

Mrs. Clinton is widely seen as a possible candidate for the party’s presidential nomination in 2008, and her remarks signaled that she could be recalibrating her strong identification with the abortion-rights movement as the Democratic Party engages in its own re-examination of its handling of the issue in the wake of Senator John Kerry’s loss in the 2004 presidential race.

Ms. Clinton has been a visible and very public defender of abortion rights, appearing at a huge rally in Washington last spring and denouncing what she called Republican efforts to demonize the abortion rights movement.

While she acknowledged in her address today that Americans have "deeply held differences" over abortion rights, Mrs. Clinton told the annual conference of the Family Planning Advocates of New York State, "I for one respect those who believe with all their heart and conscience that there are no circumstances under which abortion should be available."

You know where this heading. Just another restatement of the "Safe, Legal, and Rare" argument made by her husband.

Mrs. Clinton also called today for the Bush administration, religious groups, supporters and opponents of abortion rights and others to look beyond the abortion rights divide and form a broad alliance on other issues that she suggested as less incendiary: sex-education programs for teenagers that included abstinence education, emergency contraception for women who have recently had unprotected intercourse, and family planning.

If she considers the argument for more sex-education, emergency contraception, family planning as less incendiary then she is greatly mistaken. Sure she threw a bone for abstinence education, but when you create a stew containing abstinence education side by side with sexual moral relativism it is much less effective. It gets taught as "if it works for you fine" , but here are some other safe choices you know.

At one point, for instance, she drew gasps from some in the audience by mentioning that 7 percent of American women who do not use contraception account for 53 percent of all unintended pregnancies.

You could mention the 4,000 abortions a day to this same crowd and it probably wouldn’t have elicited a response. Yet tell them that 7 percent of American women don’t use contraception they gasp in surprise.

Several women in the audience reacted positively to Mrs. Clinton, whose remarks were interrupted by applause several times and ended with a standing ovation. But they also said her language and themes seemed politically calculated to deal with the abortion "freak-out" among Democrats, as one audience member put it, and reach out to independent and conservative voters in hopes of broadening her base of support for a possible 2008 presidential run.

We can expect much more of these phony conciliatory tones from presidential candidates as we approach 2008. We are totally for abortion in every circumstance and will fight to prevent any encroachment on abortion, buy hey if your pro-life we respect your deeply held opinion so vote for us!

Update: Diogenes of CWN makes an excellent point about the statistic.

Well, boys and girls, which fact is more astonishing? That 4% of American women have unintended pregnancies in the old-fashioned, pre-Copernican way of having an unintended pregnancy? Or that 47% of the unintended pregnancies occur in women who use 21st century contraceptive devices but conceive all the same?

Additionally I heard Laura Ingraham make an excellent point about what other "right" is considered as Hillary says a "tragic choice?"

The U.S. Bishop’s conference has started a new pro-life campaign called the "Second Look Project" where they will be running ads in the Washington area and throughout the US.

Here is one poster which I think is pretty effective. [PDF format]

Here is the second one. [PDF format]

Second Look Project site