A few weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control announced that the rate of abortions in this country was at its lowest level since they started tracking abortion statistics. That’s good news, right?
Truth be told, when I was lobbying on behalf of abortion clinics in the 1990’s, I always got an interesting reaction from the owners, administrators and doctors of the clinics as we watched their numbers go down year after year. Usually, it was usually the owner who would call me and ask “are everyone else’s numbers down?” They would feel a little better when I assured them that it was a national trend. We’d then spend time speculating on what was driving the numbers down.
Of course, if you own an abortion clinic, like the owner of any business, you’re always aware of your income since you have to pay the bills and prefer to – dare I say it – make a profit. So, on an almost daily basis you are watching the number of paying customers who are coming to your clinic. Of course, the anti-abortion folks have always turned that around by suggesting that the owners are just blood sucking parasites looking to make big bucks by “killing babies.”
And, let’s face it. I did meet some owners who seemed to be focused on making money to the point where I wondered if they were cutting some serious corners. But, putting aside the proverbial bad apples that exist in every field, it was always clear to me that the people who opened up these clinics and ran them for many years really did care about making sure that women had access to abortion services. Every day they and their staff would hear the stories of women who felt the need to terminate their pregnancy and, while it was usually a sad situation, the clinics just tried to do their best to help the women.
So, when an owner of a clinic sees the number of patients decreasing dramatically, they will surely think about how they are going to make a living. But they no doubt are also thinking about having to close down what has become their life’s work. From the very beginning they knew that the ultimate goal was fewer and fewer women needing abortion services, but it’s a harsh reality when that really starts to happen.
Abortion - Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information 
December 18, 2014 at 6:38 am
Another good one, Pat.
“We’d then spend time speculating on what was driving the numbers down.”
What were some of your speculations?
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December 19, 2014 at 9:51 am
We figured it was just better sex education, the availability of emergency contraception. Sorry to tell ya, John, but we never thought it was the presence of “sidewalk counselors.”
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December 19, 2014 at 5:58 pm
shoot
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January 2, 2015 at 6:14 pm
Pat, the outcomes of sidewalk counseling cannot be verified but for court cases in which women discuss the harassment, etc. from those unlcensed and intrusive people. Now, regarding numbers going down, I agree that all businesses should be concerned when the numbers go down. Nothing wrong with that. We live in a capitalist economy and should be maintaining a constant watch. Abortion is no different that the pediatrician who loses numbers because flu was not as bad one year or a plastic surgeon who loses numbers because her practice is in a small community with a limited pool of people desiring cosmetic surgery and a limited number of that group with the means to do it. With abortion, don’t all abortion docs find January and February busy due to pregnancies from the holidays? Anyway, there is nothing wrong with abortion doctors earning a decent living like all other doctors.
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December 18, 2014 at 5:15 pm
Pat,
I had to chuckle at your common, “Of course, the anti-abortion folks have always turned that around by suggesting that the owners are just blood sucking parasites looking to make big bucks by “killing babies.” It’s one of their favorites. Of course, they ignore the wealth from corporations like Halliburton who generate enormous profits by supporting and cooperating the killing incurred in the military. They conveniently ignore the ridiculous sums of money earned by pharmaceutical CEOs whose products have killed and maimed over the decades (think Thalidomide, Vioxx and a host of psychotropics). They conveniently ignore the vast sums racked in by religious leaders (think the Vatican and their minions or the televangelists of the protestant world). They conveniently ignore the multibillion dollar prison industrial complex that kills, tortures and injures human beings every single day. They conveniently ignore the shameful pollution of the water, earth and air that is killing and sickening both humans and animals.
Again, their claim to be pro-life, to respect all life from conception to natural death, must be disqualified.
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December 18, 2014 at 5:55 pm
Gheeze Kate you are a slow learner. Didn’t I just get finished saying that you can’t expect someone to do everything. I know someone who’s devoted his life to cleaning up a single river, the Hudson. You’d attack him because he’s not over in Rome exposing the Vatican?
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December 19, 2014 at 9:53 am
That’s a pretty broad indictment, Kate, of their movement. Just saying. Just because the Dunkels’ of the world are in front of clinics doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re “ignoring” Halliburton or our prison industry.
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December 19, 2014 at 2:45 pm
Yes, it is a broad indictment.
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December 19, 2014 at 6:02 pm
Kate believes it anyway. Here’s what I believe — Kate’s a gorgeous brunette and Jimmy lucked out,
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January 2, 2015 at 6:06 pm
Kate’s indictment is just fine don’t you think Pat, in terms of setting a case in which you have Dunkie implying he lives a superior life by trying to save a fetus or two but in actuality does nothing to stop or advocate against the harm done through other mechanisms.
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December 18, 2014 at 8:38 pm
So, how are the country’s child abuse and neglect stats doing? And are we to expect a sharp increase in crime twenty to twenty-five years hence?
A yuppie town in this state got all holistic about dental health and cut fluoride from the water supply four years ago. A local dentist told me in another four years the effects of their decision will be known, as the first crop of kids born nine months after the ban start getting their adult teeth in and the results of a lack of lifelong protection starts showing up..
The Freakonomics authors pointed out that the data explaining the reason for the sharp drop in crime beginning in the Nineties nationally was due to the availability of abortion after Roe v. Wade, which happened twenty years earlier. So-called “pro-lifers” don’t realize they want a return to increased criminality.
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December 19, 2014 at 4:33 am
Yeah, kill ’em all. No more crime.
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December 19, 2014 at 11:17 am
A so-called “pro-lifer’s” reaction to the problem of poorly-nurtured children being a cohort of criminality: “Yeah, kill ‘em all. No more crime.”
They simply cannot focus beyond Death!
This is the Bundy Conundrum: Why cannot they bring themselves to understand that no child HAS to grow up to be another Ted Bundy?
There probably is not a one who has read Polly Nelson’s “Defending the Devil,” her account of being Bundy’s pro bono defense lawyer. She discovered childhood abuse, family dysfunction and undiagnosed neurological issues which predisposed Bundy to gratuitous homicide.
And when you talk about the need to prevent the next Bundy, the so-called “pro-lifer” will say, “Yeah, kill ‘em all. No more crime.”
It is strong evidence that the death they claim to rescue fetuses from is really just a stand-in for the death that they know is coming for them.
So, instead of using their time, talents and money to guide real children to adulthood, they focus on trying to evade that which they cannot: their own disappearance from human memory.
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December 19, 2014 at 12:29 pm
Chuck, Chuck, I was quoting you — “Yeah, kill ’em all. No more crime.” That’s what you say, not I.
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December 26, 2014 at 5:15 pm
Boy, I can shut ’em up too, can’t I Pat.
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December 27, 2014 at 8:53 am
You inability to so much as even briefly consider the need to nurture real children is an appalling and telling characteristic of the so-called “pro-lifer,” Mr. Dunkle.
Instead of Salinger’s ” catcher in the rye,” the so-called “pro-lifer” is the spectator at the cliff, the one who watches as children toddle or rush toward the precipice, the one who never lifts a finger to save them…
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December 27, 2014 at 11:22 am
I don’t have time to think much about nurturing children, Chuck! I have all I can do trying to stop you guys from killing them.
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January 2, 2015 at 6:02 pm
Dunkie – the real reason you don’t have time to think much about nurturing children is apparently because you aren’t concerned about them. You are only concerned about fetuses. You aren’t stopping anyone from killing children. If you were, we would not see the sad stats out of places like Chicago’s inner city or similar Or the other children in this country killed at the hands of relatives through abuse and/or malnourishment. Trying to control or dominate women and trying to force all pregnancies to continue may be your life’s goal, but don’t be so arrogant to think you are stopping anyone from killing children. Maybe I should qualify that by saying “children” as defined by biology and good ‘ol Merriam Webster.
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January 7, 2015 at 7:10 am
“Maybe I should qualify that by saying “children” as defined by biology and good ‘ol Merriam Webster.”
Yeah, that’s where I go. I’d join you guys if I accepted “children” as defined by MT, Chuck, or Kate.
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December 27, 2014 at 7:39 pm
Mr. Dunkle, you are morally inferior to every woman in America who found herself unwilling and/or unready to be a parent yet chose to bear and raise the child anyway. Somehow you think that you can cajole, con or coerce a woman to bear the next Ted Bundy, and you will not be responsible for the death of three to five dozen people because of your actions.
You operate in a fantasy world where it doesn’t matter how children turn out,whether they even turn out to be human because it is important to you to see yourself as a hero no matter how much suffering they undergo or cause.
And you’re the best the so-called “pro-life” movement has to offer…
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December 28, 2014 at 5:01 am
See! That’s why I keep Chuck around.
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January 2, 2015 at 6:03 pm
yes Chuck, Dunkie is morally inferior to those women and he does appear to live in a lala land kind of existence.
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January 1, 2015 at 7:16 am
Folks on this blog, on the street outside Reading Planned Parenthood where I fight with Satan, and cops and judges have told me have told me PP does lots more than kill people, that killing is only a small part of their business. But look at this:
Abortions account for 94% of the services provided for pregnant women by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Statistics gleaned from Planned Parenthood’s annual report show that Planned Parenthood had substantially decreased its involvement in prenatal care, cancer prevention, and adoption during the past year. For every adoption referral, Planned Parenthood arranged 174 abortions.
Careful here. When someone calls what PP arranges “abortions,” he confuses the issue because “abortions” in the medical profession were always spontaneous abortions, or miscarriages. No more! Those are 174 murders, guys! Admit it!
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January 1, 2015 at 8:56 am
It’s good to hear that you’re fighting with Dick Cheney in Reading, Mr. Dunkle. I hope you blacken both his eyes and return his heart to its previous owner.
Do you have the statistics showing that, for every 174 adoptions, now many visits to adoption agencies resulted in referrals for abortion? Just as people don’t go to adoption agencies to get an abortion, people don’t go to Planned Parenthood to arrange an adoption.
In fact, it ruins your argument about Planned Parenthood that there are ANY referrals for adoption. It shows that Planned Parenthood, besides offering a range of ob/gyn services (including abortion) for women also makes it a point to consider the woman’s mental and emotional state as well, which includes exploring the soundness of her attitude toward her pregnancy and ensuring that she is making a decision she is comfortable with.
Contrast that with your own approach, which is to ensure the woman makes a choice you are comfortable with.
Or to look at it another way, those were 174 women who chose what was best for their real children, their families and themselves, They didn’t sacrifice their realistic appraisal of their right to autonomy, their responsibilities to their family and to society. They knew they didn’t want to inadvertently bear and raise the next Ted Bundy. They preferred to put their energy into raising children they love, want and have the resources for.
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January 1, 2015 at 11:23 am
Chuck begins with a whopper: “Just as people don’t go to adoption agencies to get an abortion, people don’t go to Planned Parenthood to arrange an adoption.” Realizes that. And then jumps into his usual gobbledegook hoping we’ll forget what he said.
Why is it a whopper? Because adoption agencies don’t say they’ll help kill the kid too. PP and its shills like Chuck, on the other hand, have been telling us for years that killing is just a small part of all the good they do.
I don’t read past whoppers so I’m guessing about the gobbledegook.
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January 1, 2015 at 6:58 pm
God hates a liar. You read the whole thing, and you cannot argue against it.
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January 2, 2015 at 6:07 pm
Dunkie, please entertain us with verifiable facts.
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January 3, 2015 at 1:28 pm
That would be cruel. Facts drive you guys nuts.
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January 7, 2015 at 8:37 am
John Dunkle says, “Maybe I should qualify that by saying “children” as defined by biology and good ‘ol Merriam Webster.
“Yeah, that’s where I go. I’d join you guys if I accepted “children” as defined by MT, Chuck, or Kate.”
************
He has to define a fetus as a child in order to appear to be a “rescuer.” If he accepted what a fetus is– a humanoid life form, without any of the traits associated with cognition and socialization– he’d be at risk for being considered as something less, e.g., an earthworm custodian. So-called “pro-lifers” cannot risk any compromise of their attempt at self-glorification. It is absolutely essential to their well-being that they look like heroes.
Notice also that he refers to the objects of his “rescue” attempts as female. Of course, half of the fetuses he directs his attention to are male, but the fetus is the ideal “victim”, since it can in no way disprove any claims he makes about its gender, temperament, behavior, or virtues. This makes it possible for him to make himself look even better when he proclaims his heroism to the community.
It is also interesting that when you point out to him that Ted Bundy murdered three to five dozen of his “female” fetuses and that he could have really saved their lives by raising Ted Bundy to be other than a murdered, his response is,
[Your solution to the Bundy problem] is to kill ’em all.” Which makes it reasonable to ask, “Why cannot he even think about caring for real children?”
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January 8, 2015 at 1:13 pm
Help, Kate, can you make sense out of this? Pat? Kimmie? MT? Yogi?
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January 8, 2015 at 8:03 pm
Tell us what you think it says. Start with the sentence that contains the phrase, “earthworm custodian.”
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January 9, 2015 at 9:48 am
That’s fair enough, and the sentence is clear — a fetus is a humanoid, not a human.
Well no, he’s a human. No self-respecting scientist would call him a humanoid. She could call him a young person as well, but certainly not a blob of tissue, or a humanoid, or a growth, or an earthworm, or a parasite, or any number of other curse words.
Your turn.
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January 9, 2015 at 1:47 pm
You’ve stumbled already; the sentence is not about whether or not a fetus is humanoid. It’s about how you feel about fighting over something that is less than fully human. How would you feel if you suddenly found out you had been fighting over something that was less than fully human?
Class: If the theory of aborticentrism is correct, Mr. Dunkle will not answer the above because it is too threatening to the role he wishes to play. The reason that it is threatening is that the role is vital to his emotional and psychological needs. So, if he refuses to answer it, what emotional and psychological needs might be threatened?
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January 9, 2015 at 7:14 pm
See Chuck twist away from “:humanoid”? Pin down these killers’ helpers, and they squirm. Now he’s “less than fully human,” another curse term, I can help kill him because he is less than fully human. If your were a Nazi, Chuck, you’d call him untermenschlich.
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January 10, 2015 at 2:04 am
We are not exploring the question of whether or not a fetus is human; we are exploring how you would feel IF you found out you had been fighting for something that was less than human. Please address the question.
Class: There is another factor that might or might not drive Mr. Dunkle’s attempt to keep the discussion centered on the quality of fetal life: A need to keep the argument within the bounds framed by the so-called “pro-life” side. I.e., to never stray beyond referring to a fetus as a fully-formed human being. What indications are there that he is intelligent enough to know this? If he does know this, how does it square with his professed inability to comprehend the question as originally stated (“Help, Kate. . . “)? Of the two factors– the compulsion to focus on the fetus in order to seem a hero vs. a knowledge of the importance of framing– which is the more likely to be dominant, and why? Minimum of 500 words.
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January 10, 2015 at 4:41 am
Dig in here if you have the will and you’ll see Chuck has switched again. The “humanoid” that became “the less than fully human” is now a”not a fully-formed human being.” All this after telling us that “We are not exploring the question of whether or not a fetus is human”!
Isn’t that exactly what we’re “exploring”? Otherwise why would I say you folks believe that might makes right, that the strong may kill the weak?.
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January 10, 2015 at 8:52 am
Class, notice Mr. Dunkle’s inability to address the question. What is the basis for it? Is he motivated by the importance of establishing the rules of engagement, that is, defining what the argument is about? If so, no matter how the argument proceeds, he wins, because everybody argues under the rules he establishes– which guarantees that he will have to be portrayed as a “hero,” because he has defined what a hero does. This matter of “framing” was explained by Frank Luntz, chief strategist for the Republican Party from Nixon onward, and has resulted in the cultural attitudes towards non-whites, taxes, military adventures, etc., in America. The so-called “pro-life” movement realizes its value quite well.
Or is he motivated by the fear that, if he answers the question as it is stated, he is treading into unknown territory, exploring issues which might rip off the protective layer he has so assiduously and laboriously built over a primal threat to his well-being, the fear of eternal oblivion which Death brings?
Mr. Dunkle, let’s pose a different question. Let’s say you are a lover of fine electronics, and you move heaven and earth to get the finest 54-inch flat screen TV. You are impressed with its quality and function, and you decide to become a retailer for the brand. You aggressively promote it to the public and defend its reputation to your social circle, and all are impressed by your claims. Then one day an aquaintance who is knowledgeable about the field visits and finds that your TV– and the entire line you are marketing– is a Korean ripoff. He tells you that it is his duty to warn the public.
How do you feel about your situation? Do you take offense at his intentions? Do you feel you have been deceived by the manufacturer? Do you lose sleep over your loss of social standing? Do you resent the damage the manufacturer has inflicted upon you? Do you regret your hasty acceptance of the product? Do you fear the reaction of your spouse when she finds out the truth? Do you make plans to recover your standing among your friends and the public? Do you wish you could just disappear?
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January 10, 2015 at 10:39 am
This time Chuck realizes that switching the name of the person he wants to help kill doesn’t fool anybody. so he goes to Step 2 — confuse the issue by burying it in a far-fetched situation and a mound of questions.
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January 10, 2015 at 10:07 pm
Class, notice how Mr. Bundy refuses to answer the question. How likely is it that he knows if he deviates from his script, he risks losing everything– the status he has spent decades selling to the public, the belief structure that has allowed him to deal with the certainty of his own death, and the comfort to himself that his dysfunctional behaviors produce?
Unless he is of inadequate intelligence, he is trapped. Since he cannot flex enough mentally to have an objective discussion, he knows that his whole crusade is based on an insubstantial foundation. Which is tough sh*t for the next 35-60 young women the next Ted Bundy type is going to kill, but being a “hero” is more important.
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January 11, 2015 at 4:53 am
And by the way, Chuck, wasn’t it just year you were telling us that you may help kill someone unless you or someone else promises to spend the quarter million it takes to raise him adequately?
Now this year year it’s you may help kill hm unless is fully developed. Forty-five years ago I was fully developed physically and I’ve been deteriorating ever since. Does that mean you may help kill me? And take you. You;re not fully developed mentally even yet because I’ve not finished with you. Does that mean I may help kill you?
Answer both questions please.
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January 11, 2015 at 2:05 pm
Class, I think we might agree that Mr. Dunkle’s behavior in the preceding argument is explained by the intellectual dishonesty of his position. It is quite likely that his behavior is true of all so-called “pro-lifers.” So let us try another approach: how much does he care for provably human life?
First to dispose of his attempt at another diversion, one in which Mr. Dunkle, true to the focus of the so-called “pro-life” movement, uses the word “kill” four times and the word “nurture” not once: I have only stated, often and great length, that I would “rescue” a fetus when I am willing to expend over a quarter million dollars and at least 18 years of my time to ensure it has a good chance to develop into an adult capable of fulfilling its human potential. I have done that once in my life. I have never, ever said I “may help to kill.” that is Mr. Dunkle’s self-serving construct.
As for me being willing to kill, If I hadn’t when I was in the military, they wouldn’t have paid me.
Once you have the mindset, it never leaves you. It can be summed up as, it’s messy but it’s no skin off my nose. My feeling these days is, What’s the point? It doesn’t bring about the needed change or any satisfaction.
But now let’s talk about Mr. Dunkle’s daughter!
Mr. Dunkle, what steps would you take to protect your newborn daughter, given that one out of every four female American babies experiences sexual abuse which on the average starts at age two? Or, given that you say you have four sons, what steps would you take in their behalf, given that the chances for each of them was one in eight?
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January 11, 2015 at 5:27 pm
Class, I did this once privately with Chuck. I think we exchanged 453 emails and ended up back where we started. I don’t think you want to go through that.
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January 11, 2015 at 7:45 pm
Class, Mr. Dunkle exaggerates– the total number of missives in our e-mail correspondence was fewer than 30.
I did not pose a hypothetical question about a daughter, but I did ask him how he felt about a dog being abandoned by its owner. He stated he thought the dog would do all right.
As one who has dealt with abandoned pets, I was appalled at his insouciance. I have a feeling that he does no better with understanding the need to nurture real children, which is why he refuses to answer my latest question.
Until he explains otherwise, it is logical to assume that he feels it is quite all right to insist a child be born who will be raped by the age of three. And this is, I believe, a typical “pro-life” position.
And his response will be, “So, you believe she should be killed?”
And he will pretend not to read my response to that: “No. If I insist on a birth, I must take on the responsibility for the real child’s welfare.”
So-called ‘pro-lifers’ are simply incapable of caring for real human life.
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January 11, 2015 at 8:14 pm
“Real human life,” class, varies according to Chuck. Sometimes real humans are fully developed people, sometimes they’re not humanoids, sometimes others have to love them. Chuck keeps changing the definition of who’s really human or not. And if at one time or another they fall outside of his boundaries, Chuck thinks it’s OK to kill them.
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January 13, 2015 at 8:11 am
Shorter version: How can he claim to care for other children (real or imagined) when he doesn’t care about his own?
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January 12, 2015 at 5:14 pm
Class, take note how Mr. Dunkle does not venture outside the very narrow limits he has defined for an argument.
Most people would be very clear about what they would do to protect their child from abuse, especially in this country sexual abuse– and in his response to the question Mr. Dunkle does not even refer to the question.
There are two main possibilities for this odd behavior. The first would be that he has all the sensibility of a Catholic bishop.If that is the case then he clearly has no authority in making any pronouncements about “rescuing” his clientele.
The second is that he is aware and has at the least a general grasp of what he would do to protect his child, but he knows he dare not address the subject.
He knows that if he were to address the need to protect his two-year-old son or daughter, he would be revealing his knowledge of the need to protect all real children. Known to be knowledgeable, he would then be challenged as to why he does not care for the welfare of any other real child, but merely lets them all toddle from the womb to the lip of the precipice. Faced with that challenge, he would then have to examine his conscience. His conscience would tell him that his behavior towards children whom he wanted born, who he know face grave dangers and whom he does not in the least care for is sociopathic. And then he would face a very deep crisis.
So, he sticks to an argument which stays framed by the so-called “pro-life” movement.
He is probably at heart a good man, and it is sad to see him in this bind. It cripples him.
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January 13, 2015 at 4:38 am
Huh?
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January 13, 2015 at 8:12 am
Shorter version: How can he claim to care for other children (real or imagined) when he doesn’t care about his own?
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January 13, 2015 at 6:14 pm
Huh?
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