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September 26, 2012

Abortion and the Single Issue Voter

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion, Abortion & Religion, GOP, ProLife, Romney, Vote
[156] Comments 

You have heard, no doubt, people saying that their choice for president is based on sentiments such as “we have shared values” or “he’s authentic” or “he’s prolife.” Political scientist Samuel Popkin of the University of California, San Diego, calls this kind of reasoning “gut rationality.” Essentially, people vote by heuristics and go with their gut, with whom they most identify, or with how the candidates make them feel. But such a vote, while rational sounding, tells us that voters often vote with their heart and not their head.

For most prolife voters (and other single-issue voters), emotional voting is a substitute for their cognitive-processing limitations. Most voters simply do not know all that there is to know about a candidate. The information available on the candidate’s record, the assessment of the veracity of the information and prognostications for what the candidate might do if voted into office, is a daunting task for political pundits. For ordinary citizens, sifting through this data, if available, could cause an overload for even the most studious.

The average citizen is woefully ignorant of facts and, thus, relies on sound bytes and obfuscatory God terms like family values, patriotism, freedom and progress. In fact, according to political voting behavior expert, Drew Westen, PhD, when given empirical data that pushed voters one way or the other, that had no impact, those facts only hardened their emotionally biased views. In politics, Westen claims, “when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins.” It’s a sad reality for our democracy when reason and facts lose to emotions, when politicians’ sound bytes reign over the complexities within the platform of each candidate aspiring to lead our country.

  Not surprising, for most prolife voters, abortion, couched as the all-encompassing prolife moniker, is their single issue vote looking for a prolife candidate. So, if you are that voter, ask yourself how ending legal abortion will improve the lives of single mothers, homeless and hungry families or unemployed parents. Ask yourself how your prolife candidate will address the astronomical rise in sexually transmitted infections in teens (one out of four) in spite of the failed conservative-embraced abstinence-only education in school districts. Ask how ending legal abortion will help the woman carrying a dead fetus at 14 weeks or help the woman with a hydranencephalic fetus. Ask how ending legal abortion will help the woman who is forced to continue her pregnancy despite suffering from affective psychosis and serious hyperemesis gravidurum.  Ask how ending legal abortion will help the pregnant woman who does not want to continue the pregnancy, does not want to be a mother, does not want the fetus to be inside her, has no emotional attachment to this thing growing inside her and does not want any outsiders telling her what she can or cannot do with her body. These questions are just about abortion. They’re not about the larger issues that support women and their families. They’re not about the very real issues that families face as they try to put food on the table, tutor children with their homework, juggle work and family, and juggle finances to pay the rent or buy the groceries. Some say that it’s a matter of conscience. They say they cannot support someone who agrees with taking innocent life. OK. But does your prolife candidate support the military’s taking of innocent lives in the many U.S. invasions? Does your candidate support capital punishment? Does your candidate support budgetary cuts that break the lifelines for the poor, the disenfranchised and our veterans? And after you’ve pondered your answers to these questions, issues that the Congress and the president can impact, remember that the president doesn’t decide the abortion issue. The only role the president has in that regard is through his judicial appointments, primarily to the Supreme Court.

To sum things up, consider two more questions. First, if you’re an antiabortion single-issue voter making your bet on the prolife candidate, ask yourself if abortion is something that is paramount to the safety, prosperity, to the very existence of all in this nation. Second, ask yourself if the end of legal abortion will save the nation from destruction in the long run. I’m betting you cannot answer in the affirmative to either question, if you are truthful.

 

August 22, 2012

It’s Not Akin: It’s the GOP

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion, Abortion Information, Abortion Stigma, Capitol Hill, GOP, Pro Life Deception, Pro Life Lies, ProLife, Republican Party, Romney, The Future of Legal Abortion, Vote, War on Birth Control
[53] Comments 

Our media-saturated culture conditions boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women in magazines, television, and film and in everyday life. The message is clear. Womanizing is about power and privilege, a sense of entitlement. And in religion and politics, we see the same culture of misogyny. The latest comes from Missouri Republican Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin. Akin, who opposes abortion in all cases, including rape, said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Mr. Aiken, oddly enough, is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, yet he uses non-scientific reasoning to perpetrate one of the most offensive and ignorant campaign season’s comments yet. To wit a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology that states, “an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year,” in the United States, meaning that about 5 percent of women who are raped do become pregnant. And of that 5 percent, 50% choose to abort the pregnancy. Imagine—Science defying the logic of the GOP.

Beyond what Akin said is the logic that informed his gaffe. If you get pregnant, it wasn’t rape. That’s it. If you are violently and sexually penetrated by a rapist’s penis, against your will, and you are impregnated, then it wasn’t rape. But even beyond that logic is his unquestionable stance against abortions for any reason; hence, he believes if you get pregnant, you should carry the pregnancy to term.

This faux science is not new. In fact, his canard has been floating around the anti abortion Republicans for some time. Let’s go back to 1998 and a statement from Fay Boozman, the late Fay Boozman of Arkansas. He was running for U.S. Senate, and he said fear-induced hormonal changes could block a rape victim’s ability to conceive. In 1995, North Carolina State Representative Henry Aldridge said, “The facts show that people who are raped, who are truly raped, the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.” Then there’s a similar statement from 1988. Pennsylvania Republican State Representative Steven Friend said, “The odds of a woman becoming pregnant through rape are one in millions and millions and millions.” He said, “The trauma of rape causes women to secrete a certain secretion which has a tendency to kill sperm.” One has to notice the covert message that almost excuses the perpetrators and blames the victims of sexual violence.

I’m reminded of an incident at an Allentown PA abortion clinic where a mother and daughter were verbally accosted by a particularly aggressive protester. The mother told the man that her daughter was raped. And rather than back off or show some modicum of compassion, he screamed,“If the child was conceived in rape that’s the way God wanted it.” [see video]. Essentially, disregard the violence. Disregard her pain. Disregard her humanity. Fr. Frank Pavone said essentially the same thing in an interview years back. He claimed (and still does) the mother was harmed once. Abortion would harm her again and kill her unborn.  Again, no regard for the violence, no regard for the woman, no regard for what the woman wants.

The fact remains that Todd Akin will never know what it means to be a woman, to be trapped in a bed, shoved down on a parking garage staircase, or tied to pole in an abandoned basement. He’ll never know what it’s like to be violently assaulted by some aggressive, indifferent friend or stranger or relative. He’ll not know what it feels like having someone gag you, rip off your clothes and enter your most personal, sacred, private part of your body and do so violently, hatefully forcing himself into you, ripping you apart, filling you with unwanted sperm, and knowing you cannot escape the thing growing inside of you. Todd Aiken will never experience being a woman who is pregnant from a rapist and being told you have no choice. Yet, I’m betting, he’s pretty self-righteous when he says women should have no choice.

Like the majority of the GOP, including the Vice President hopeful Paul Ryan, Todd Akin’s message is clear: No abortion for you! Your body is to support the rapist’s fetus against your will. And when you see the face of the rapist in that child, you will be judged harshly if you cannot love that face.

My sense is that this debacle is further evidence of what is known as the GOP’s war on women. But right-wing media figures have downplayed and dismissed Republican Congressman Todd Akin’s controversial remarks on rape and abortion, calling them “dumb” and a distraction. The public response to Akin’s comments more or less drove him to offer a feigned apology. I say feigned because it now it appears that, all the while, the people really in charge of the GOP—fundamentalist anti-choicers among them—have been writing a party platform that not only makes all of that a lie, but is in effect a promise to make the personhood of fertilized eggs the law of the land.

The draft official platform strongly supports a “a human life amendment” to the Constitution:

Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed, the draft platform declares. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”

Let’s be very, very clear that such an amendment—which Mitt Romney has said unequivocally he would sign—would not only criminalize abortions of any kind for any reason, but also would outlaw many forms of contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and treatment of pregnant women with life-threatening conditions such as cancer. Moreover, it would also criminalize miscarriage.

So, there you have some of the facts. The problem isn’t Akin.

It’s the central position of the GOP controlled by fundamentalists who believe women have no rights. Which side of history will you be on?

 

July 11, 2012

A Big Disconnect

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion & Religion, Abortion Information, Abortion lies, Abortion MisInformation, Bush, Obama, Planned Parenthood, Vote
[66] Comments 

People in the prolife movement are fond of saying they respect all life from womb to tomb. But I’m wondering if their talk is nothing but Christian confections like the sweet, gritty nothingness of cotton candy . I’m wondering about this because between saying and doing, there is an ocean of difference. Saying you’re prolife in polls, on blogs, on bumper stickers and in a house of worship is easy. Talk, as the saying goes, is cheap. But let’s face the possibility that being prolife is just code for being anti abortion. It is surely not about respecting all of life from womb to tomb. Recall the early presidential debates when prolife Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) made quite a show of being a conservative Christian. Yet under his watch he executed 234 prisoners, thus, raising questions about the big disconnect within conservative Christians and small government Tea Party libertarians in the Republican Party.  Let’s consider other examples of this questionable disconnect in the prolife movement.

First, let’s look at those mostly Republican legislators who promote cuts to WIC (education and nutrition supplements for women, infants and children). Their efforts give new meaning to putting women and children first as they place the nation’s fiscal concerns on the shoulders of babies. Economic analysis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget has shown that every $1 spent on WIC results in a savings of $1.77 to $3.13 in health care costs, primarily attributed to reduced rates of low birth weight and improved rates of immunizations. Rather than saving money, cutting WIC services may ultimately result in increased health care costs due to low birth weight, iron deficiency and undernutrition. Again, it seems that the prolife moniker only means anti abortion.

As with WIC, there are cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP is a lifeline for those in need, which includes children and senior citizens. Rather than respect all life from womb to tomb, and contrary to the very values we hold as Americans to treat those most in need, our prolife legislators have elected to slash SNAP funding. This funding cut will increase hunger for our most vulnerable and eliminate thousands of jobs, particularly in the food-related industries. According to current statistics 16.2 million children live in households that struggle to put food on the table while prolifers worry about fetuses being aborted. The Food Research and Action Center claim that the “most prolific and compelling research shows that the effects of food insecurity on children impact their health, development, learning and mental health.”  I would argue that feeding children and those adults in need, ensuring that they have adequate nutrition, aligns more thoughtfully and authentically to the meaning about prolife than fretting about abortion.

Second, let’s ponder how those in the prolife movement claim that abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, target minorities by locating their clinics in their minority neighborhoods as a means for eliminating undesirables from society. But the fly in the ointment is the Guttmacher factoid that 63% of abortion providers are in predominantly non-Hispanic white neighborhoods. That hardly looks like targeting. Further, prolifers also argue that African Americans account for higher rates of abortion, a fact provided by the CDC. Disingenuously, prolifers fail to mention that numerous factors such as poverty, lack of health care, cultural practices, family size and lack of reliable birth control can contribute to higher abortion rates. More to the point is the fact that while the prolifers are wringing their hands about targeting minorities, they conveniently ignore the minorities who are being targeted by police and the judicial system and executed in our prison systems. In fact, despite a clear majority of voters (61%) who would choose a punishment other than execution, our nation retains the death penalty, a fact shared by difficult countries such as Libya, Chad, and Sierra Leone. So the hypocrisy of Governors Rick Perry (R-TX) and Phil Bryant (R-MS), both conservative Christians who claim the prolife label, but take the lead on the number of executions, is quite remarkable. On a related note, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the homicide victimization rate for blacks (19.6 homicides per 100,000) was 6 times higher than the rate for whites (3.3 homicides per 100,000). Making outrageous claims about Planned Parenthood targeting black women is an absurd waste of time particularly with respect to the genuine, far larger, more life-threatening issues that impact blacks in our nation.

A final example of the big disconnect among prolifers is drawn from the synergistic impact of the government, the military and corporatism. Corporatism— whether through direct handouts, corporate bailouts, eminent domain, licensing laws, antitrust regulations, or environmental edicts — inflicts a measurable degree of harm on Americans. For example, measurable levels of hundreds of corporate manufactured chemicals are routinely found in the bodies of all Americans, including newborns. Many of the toxins found in baby bottles and toys have been linked to developmental and reproductive disorders. Even Presidents Bush and Obama aggressively supported harmful genetically modified food policies from corporations like Monsanto while they plant organic gardens in the White House and have organic kitchen policies. And while our nation’s poorest are subjected to harmful environmental contaminants, nearby industries are afforded lenient policies to protect their bottom line. But these contaminants create the perfect health storm for mostly African American children living nearby. For black children, one out of every six (CDC) has asthma due to pollution, poverty, and being people of color. So, worrying about abortion seems rather petty in comparison to the misery that children and adults endure.

During wartime, the politically connected corporations derive high profits and cushy contracts. But war has its share of collateral damage. Where was the moral outcry for approximately 90,000 civilians who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by our “freedom loving” military forced into service by George W. Bush? Where was the moral outrage when prolife, Christian conservative Republican President George W. Bush along with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia and found guilty of war crimes for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment? While many patriotic types believe in American capitalism and our mighty military as a good for humanity, most are blind to the inherent savage, destructive nihilism of our country’s actions. Wringing hands and waving cardboard “End Abortion” signs seem frivolous compared to the tens of thousands who die, who are maimed or who are chronically ill because of policies and actions of the government, the military and corporatism.

While prolifers are forever worrying about the vast sums of money doctors earn from providing abortions, they’re not concerned at all about the vast sums of money that orthopedic surgeons or orthodontists earn. It can’t be about the money because many of them file frivolous lawsuits for handsome sums of compensation. And it surely isn’t their claim to respect all life at all ages because they’re apparently not concerned at all about their votes for candidates who support military actions that kill civilians. And while funding cuts to nutrition programs are touted as necessary to reduce the deficit and as important to ensure that we don’t create a welfare state, prolifers seem little concerned with the politicians’ decisions. In truth, they’re not prolife in any meaningful way. They’re just against abortion. And that, dear readers, is what I see as a Big Disconnect.

 

May 3, 2012

The War on Women

Posted by DrK8 under Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Information, Abortion Rights, Birth Control, Republican Party, Vote, War on Birth Control
[31] Comments 

Mainstream media is so predictable with their binary framing of controversial issues (as either pro or con), their proclivity toward sensationalism and their power to set the agenda for what they think is important. A cursory review of news sources frames the war on women as an exercise in finger pointing. Obama, Democrats and feminists accuse the Republicans of starting the war. Republicans counter by accusing the Democrats of making up the war for political gain. That’s the binary framing that the media promotes. Regardless of who started the battle, the sensationalism is highly entertaining.

One Charleston Gazette editorial claimed that “the current Republican presidential campaign contains a weird assault on rights of American women.” Another post from the Progressive asserted “The Republicans are on a rampage. Like a bunch of drunken frat boys, egged on by their leader — that big, fat, bullying lout Rush Limbaugh — they’re taunting women, calling us “sluts,” and suggesting policies like forced vaginal probes for abortion patients and letting a woman’s boss decide what kind of birth control coverage she should get.” And from politcususa, Jason Easley called the Republican war on women “a poltical affirmation of misogyny.” Kellie Overbey (asisfor.org) claims that this viral power grab from a misogynistic cultish, maniacal lust for power” threatens women at their very core. But my all time favorite comes from Charlotte Taft, Abortion Care Network, when she wrote “My observation is that if the Republican Taliban has its way only corporations and fertilized eggs will be recognized as people with any rights!”

Beyond the sensationalism is the utterly egregious assault on women’s reproductive health. The Republican pandering to the religious right and to less educated and lower income white men, codifies the GOP as womb warriors. From attempts at state-mandated transvaginal ultrasounds to fetal personhood laws, from actual defunding Planned Parenthood to justifiable homicide law to a killing committed in the defense of an unborn child, the war has been an attack on women, their agency, and their legal and reproductive rights. Ruth Conniff, Editor of the Progressive wrote “It’s one thing to drive a wedge between Americans over issues like regulating late-term abortion. But it’s quite another to pivot to an all-out campaign to control, intimidate, and humiliate women as a group.” I’m not sure I’d call it a campaign. It’s more like a 21st century Inquisition. But modern women aren’t taking this battle sitting down.

In a call to action to defend women’s rights and the pursuit of equality, UniteWomen.org women gathered in state capitals across the nation this past weekend to shout “Enough is Enough!”  Angry with Congress, the White House, Democrats and Republicans, the outrage expressed by young and old alike points to one clear message: The men running this country are out of touch. As half of the nation’s population, women know more about what is in their best interest than a handful of men, mostly religious, many playing cheap political games and orchestrating a war against women. Their messages went right to the heart of their concerns. One woman carried a sign with an image of a uterus and text that listed things that belong is a uterus (hormones, baby, IUD) and things that don’t belong in a uterus (government, ‘persons’, religion, misplace moral outrage). Another sign read “women’s rights are human rights.” Or one I found particularly funny was an e-card “Ever notice when the Muslims suppress women’s rights, we call them terrorists, but when Catholics do it, we call them Bishops? ROFL” And then there is the elegance of simplicity, “I have the uterus. I make the rules.”

So, did the media provide much coverage for UniteWomen rallies? Nope. That’s how it goes. While bloggers and journalists posted editorials, commentaries and cartoons, mainstream media chose to avoid the fuss. But that didn’t stop thousands of women and men from rallying in state capitals from Austin, Sacramento, Denver, and Atlanta to Harrisburg, Richmond, Juneau and Montgomery.

 

And in cyberspace, women continue to rally. When women are pissed, they will find a way to get their messages known, mainstream media or not. I strongly suspect that the good ole boys, particularly the GOP, will finally realize in November that women have had enough.

Women know, as Andy Ostroy writes, if the Republicans “truly cared about women as much as they contend, they’d stay out of their bedrooms and vaginas and stop trying to cut everything that supports them and their families. Don’t think women won’t go to the polls in November remembering who’s on their side and who isn’t.”

 

July 15, 2011

It Sounds a Little Hypocritical to Me…

Posted by Pat Richards under Aborticentrism, Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Blog, Abortion Candidates, Abortion Centers, Abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Information, Abortion Late, Abortion Law, Abortion lies, Abortion Medical, Abortion Mifeprex, Abortion MisInformation, Abortion Rights, Abortion RU486, CPCs Criminal Activity, Free Speech, Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, Liberal, Lies, Pro Life Deception, Pro Life Lies, Roe V Wade, Terrorism, The Future of Legal Abortion, Vote | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[104] Comments 

Stop Bullying Women

For many years, anti-abortion activists have lobbied their state legislatures to pass laws that require abortion clinics to share certain information with their patients.  These so-called “Right to Know” laws take many forms:  giving the patient a brochure that shows the stages of fetal development, taking an ultrasound and showing it to the woman, reciting a script to the patient that is a litany of things that can go wrong with an abortion, etc., etc.

Although the pro-choice movement regularly opposes these laws, I have written in the past about how the affect of these laws on the woman is rather minimal.  For example, most women casually look at the brochures, if at all, then toss them into

the garbage.  I’ve been in the rooms with woman as they observed their ultrasound, asked questions about the fetus then proceeded to have the abortion.  It’s all a rather big waste of time if you ask me, but if the anti-abortion movement wants to spend their time on this kind of stuff, go for it.  And, after all, it’s all well-intentioned, isn’t it?  Sure, they would prefer to make that woman’s act totally illegal, but since they can’t do that they want to make sure that a woman is making an informed choice.  How compassionate of them, huh?

Meanwhile, up in New York City, the City Council has taken a great interest in the activities of a number of “crisis pregnancy centers” that, according to testimony provided in a hearing, are engaging in “deceptive” practices designed to convince the woman that they are actually medical facilities.  It seems that the staff in some of these cpcs a

Ultrasound Before Abortion Procedure

re doing some interesting things.  For some reason, they are collecting personal and insurance information in the waiting room, the consultations are taking place on examination tables with the woman in the stirrups and “scrub suited consultants” are giving free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds.   On its face, it sounds a little deceptive to me but I’m sure these reports are not accurate because we’ve been told so many times that cpcs do not engage in this kind of behavior.

Still, this crazy ole City Council is concerned about this alleged behavior so they passed a law requiring the cpcs to post signs saying they have no doctors on site and don’t’ give advice about abortions or birth control.  Sounds kind of like the “Right to Know” laws that are being imposed on abortion clinics.

But, lo and behold, here comes the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian advocacy group, and they challenge the law, saying it would have violated the center’s right to free speech.  And, recently, a local judge agreed with them and slapped an injunction on the new law.

Putting aside all the legal mumbo-jumbo and the current status of the law, what I cannot sort out is why anti-abortion advocates want abortion clinics to inform women of everything but the kitchen sink, but when the NY City Council wants to ask them to give out just a little information about their centers, they balk at the idea?

Somebody help me here, please!

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May 11, 2011

Are We Still Fighting the Abortion “War?”

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion Discussion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Candidates, Supreme Court, Vote, Abortion Late, Abortion Information, Abortion Rates, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Doctor Murder, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Documentary, Abortion Doctors that Have Lost Their Medical License, Aborticentrism, Abortion Blog, Terrorism, Abortion Pregnancy Centers, Abortion Centers, Vicki Saporta | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[36] Comments 

The Wichita Divide

Hyperbole.

I always liked that word, although it was years before I understood its meaning.  And, of course, like most Americans I always mispronounced it by saying “Hyper Bowl.”

Speaking of…yesterday, a friend of mine told me about yet another book on abortion called “The Wichita Divide: The Murder of Dr. George Tiller and the Battle over Abortion” by one Stephen Singular.  I will admit right up front that I have not read the book in its entirety and probably never will.   Immersed in the issue for years, I never read any of the books about abortion except – to be honest – to go to the index to see if I was mentioned.

So, I may be totally misrepresenting Mr. Singular’s thesis but the gist is that the city of Wichita and the state of Kansas are now hotbeds in the battle over abortion rights.  Actually, he refers to these spots as the hosts in a new “war.”  Other authors and columnists also commonly refer to the current state of the battle over abortion rights as a “war.”

Hyperbole.

I will admit that there may have been some semblance of a “war” in the 1980’s and 1990’s when abortion clinics were being bombed and abortion doctors were being stalked, threatened, attacked and killed.  It was domestic terrorism, pure and simple – and I was in the middle of it.  But I put the word “war” in quotes because, to me, a war is when two sides are engaged in the battle.  In that case, the bombs were being planted and the shots were being fired by one side only.  Yes, to be fair, the attacks were coming from a violent fringe of the anti-abortion movement, but it was a one-sided assault nonetheless.   We never shot back.

But, to define today’s situation in Wichita or the nation as a “war” is laughable.  Nationally, although there are some exceptions, the average abortion clinic no longer has to deal with anti-abortion protestors.  If they do, it’s usually a handful of octogenarians who barely have enough energy to yell “Don’t Kill Your Baby!”   After taking their morning medication, these “warriors” will grab their twenty year old sign, take the bus out to the clinic and, depending on the weather, stand out front in a pathetic effort to “save babies.”  Of course, the

y rarely succeed.  It’s actually a sorry scene compared to years ago when anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue could conger up hundreds of people at a moment’s notice to block access to a clinic.  Protestors were regularly arrested and sent to jail.  On the other hand, I’ll bet you that not more than 10 people have been arrested in the last few years for blocking access to an abortion clinic.  At the same time, folks like Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, Joe Scheidler and Pat Mahoney have virtually disappeared.  In fact, here is a question for you:   can you name one national anti-abortion leader?

On the other side of the coin, the abortion clinic escort movement, which helped many women get through the crowds of pro-lifers, has also virtually disappeared.  Of course, that is good news in that there is no great need for these courageous folks who volunteered their time to help women obtain an abortion.

I have no doubt that another doctor will ultimately get killed, a clinic will be vandalized, and some staffer will one night get a death threat.  But – and I don’t mean to sound cavalier about this – this is part of the territory.  When a person signs up to work in an abortion clinic, they understand the risks.  It’s the same for a firefighter or a policeman.

But, despite the occasional incident carried out by some bored pro-lifer, for the life of me I cannot fathom how anyone can suggest that there is some kind of “war” in Wichita or anywhere else over the abortion issue.    It might sell a book or two, but it’s a totally silly suggestion.

Hyperbole.

 

April 25, 2011

Do Pro-Lifers Have Sex?

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion Information, Supreme Court, Terrorism, Uneducated, Vote | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[110] Comments 

No Sex

Okay, boys and girls.  Let’s talk about sex.

Now that I have your attention.

So, as we know, there are a whole bunch of people out there who would prefer to make abortion illegal in this country.  They would like to go back to the old days when far too many women were being transported to the hospital emergency rooms because of a self-induced abortion or one performed by a shady back-alley “abortionist.”  How they can place more value on the “life” of that fetus over a woman’s health is beyond me, but I respect thoughtful anti-abortion advocates and support their right to try to make abortion illegal again through the judicial or legislative process.   Knock yourself out.

But here’s what I don’t get.  There are also millions and millions of anti-abortion advocates who do not support birth control.   I guess they are just taking their marching orders from the Pope who, theoretically, never has sex.  So, these people are telling others that if they are going to have sex with their partner, then it has to be with the intention of producing a child.  Forget the condoms or the birth control pills.  That is VERBOTEN.

Now, my question is this – how often are these anti-abortion, anti-birth control wackos having sex?

Anti Abortion Rally

Let’s assume that Mary and John have been married for 10 years and, being good Catholics, they have sex only once a month.  Now, of course, they are not going to conceive every time they have sex.  That’s particularly true if they do not have intercourse and really go out on a limb by doing something else (which, I suspect, is probably enough to send you straight to hell).  But let’s say they have intercourse 7 times in a year.  So, what I’m starting to add up in my head is that they will have one child a year.  Now, I know this is not scientific but my point is at that rate – if everyone in the country suddenly because devout Catholics – we would beat the crap out of China in the population race, marking probably the only time we would beat China in anything.

I think what this all comes down to is anti-abortion folks who don’t support birth control probably don’t have much sex.  And that shouldn’t be too surprising.  I mean, have you been to an anti-abortion rally lately?  Have you looked at the crusty old men and the misshapen women who have suffered through ten pregnancies?  And talk about getting in the mood.  Can you imagine standing outside of a clinic for hours, screaming at women, fantasizing over the baby they think they’ve saved, then going home to have some furious post-demonstration sex?   I think not.  And that’s why it is easy for them to say “no” to artificial birth control because they are doing it naturally by not having sex!

The point that I want to make, of course, is that anti-abortion folks need to get real.  If you really want to stop abortion, it ain’t gonna happen by you standing outside a clinic with a bullhorn shouting “Don’t kill me, Mommy!  Don’t kill me!”  The way you will stop an abortion is by preventing the conception of the child in the first place.  That’s why I will always say that abortion clinics, because they counsel women on birth control and offer free samples, do more to stop abortion than anyone.

And the other thing I want to say to my friends in that movement is:  have some fun.  I am now 61 years old and my spouse is 57.  We still have sex several times a week in all kinds of places and all kinds of positions with all kinds of toys.  Saturday morning is our favorite time – the time that most demonstrators are out at a clinic.

Life is too short, folks.  Join the party before it is too late.

 

April 18, 2011

The “Elvis of the Pelvis”

Posted by Pat Richards under Aborticentrism, Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Blog, Abortion Candidates, Abortion Centers, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Doctor Murder, Abortion Documentary, Abortion Information, Abortion Late, Abortion Law, Abortion lies, Abortion Medical, Abortion Rates, Bob Packwood, Doctor Finkel, Sexual Molestation in Abortion Offices, Supreme Court, Vote | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Dr. Finkel

After a while, we simply referred to him as “Finkel.”

I am referring to Doctor Brian Finkel who for many years owned an abortion facility in Phoenix, Arizona. He was an outspoken Ob-Gyn who performed abortions with a gun on his hip. He was one of the few doctors who would talk openly and honestly about his work. Check that, he never saw a microphone or television camera that he didn’t love. And today he is serving time in a county jail for sexually assaulting and molesting a number of his abortion patients. He will probably be there for the rest of his life.

I can’t remember when I first heard of Doctor Finkel, but I think it was when he called our office to inquire about how he could join the National Coalition of Abortion Providers. At that point, we had only three staff people, including me, so it was impossible to run a complete check to determine if he was a good doctor who was running a respectable clinic. Still, I did call a few people on my board but no one had ever heard of him. When I called him to talk about membership, I was impressed by his candor and his articulateness. And, truth be told, he was one of the funniest guys I had ever met.

We ultimately allowed him to join. What appealed to me was Finkel’s willingness to talk about his work. Around that time, the anti-abortion violence was really hitting the fan and our doctors were running in the opposite direction. They were either quitting their job altogether or at least going underground. But I needed doctors to talk, to share with the world their horror stories, to testify before the Congress, to tell the real story. And Finkel, who employed a professional speech writer, fit that bill.

Shortly after he joined NCAP, I visited him at this clinic. It was one of the more beautiful facilities I had ever seen, all decorated in a southwest motif. I quickly learned that he had an Elvis fixation, as his walls were adorned with all sorts of pictures and tapestries featuring The King. Indeed, Finkel referred to himself as “The Elvis of the Pelvis.” In person, I started to get a different perspective. He was rather short with his staff, often referring to them as “honey” or “sugar lips.” And in private conversations, he would regularly refer to “the bitches” who needed abortions. When he had to go into the surgery room, he would say he was going to “the vaginal vault.” He would refer to the “niggers” or “spics” who “didn’t know how to keep their legs closed.” The invectives flowed so smoothly out of his mouth that it stunned me to the point where at first I literally could not respond. I would ultimately admonish him and he would cool it for a while. Of course, being a total slob did not disqualify him from performing abortions and, again, I needed a doctor who had the balls to speak to the American public. I was very torn.

In 1994 NCAP decided to hold a press conference in Washington D.C. to urge the (Clinton) Administration to help protect abortion providers from the terrorism that was raging across the country and, with a gulp, I invited Finkel. He was a big hit. That night, our event was the first story on each of the network news shows and Finkel was the star because he was smart enough to know about props. At one point, he bent down behind his podium and held up his bullet proof vest to the cameras. “Mr. President, I need protection. I am just an Ob-Gyn in Phoenix Arizona, not an American ranger in Mogodishu.” After that, Finkel became a star. He and I were both on Good Morning America a few days after John Salvi killed several abortion clinic workers in Boston. He debated everyone, he was even on the Howard Stern show.

Behind the scenes, however, he kept telling me that the local District Attorney was out to “get him.” He even asked me to talk to the D.A., which I didn’t do. That’s because deep down I started to suspect that Finkel was a little wackier than I really thought. Then, in September 2001 everything hit the fan. That’s when a woman told a Phoenix newspaper that after undergoing an abortion in Finkel’s clinic she had woken up from sedation to find the doctor lying against her with his hands on her breasts. In the weeks and months that followed, more than 100 women reported similar allegations against Finkel to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which charged him with more than 60 counts of sexual misconduct involving 35 different women and he was convicted on most of those charges. Finkel called me asking me to intervene on his behalf but I couldn’t do it. Of course, I couldn’t prove anything but I had just seen or heard too much over the years. To this day, I wonder if there was anything I could have done to prevent those women from being harmed.

Today, on Father’s Day, I get a letter from Finkel adorned with lots of wild doodling and numerous exclamation points. He tells me how he was “railroaded” and how “justice will soon be served.” His only remaining option is the U.S. Supreme Court. So Finkel, who is now in his sixties and has about 20 years on his sentence left, will probably die in prison.

Good riddance.

 

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