October 18, 2010

Shaking Things Up in Washington, D.C?

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Blog, Abortion Candidates, Abortion Centers, Abortion Information, Abortion Law, Abortion lies, Abortion Medical, Abortion Mifeprex, Abortion Oval Office, Abortion Pill, Abortion Rights, Church, Congressman, Free Speech, Free Speech Constraints, Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, history, Supreme Court, Terrorism, Uneducated | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[24] Comments 

Abortion

I first want to apologize for being incommunicado for the last five days.  My spouse and I slipped out of town to spend some “quality time” together.  We actually had a wonderful time not talking about the kids or about our mortgage payment.  Geez, I don’t even recall having one serious argument!

And now I’m back in the Washington, D.C. area and all anyone is talking about here is the upcoming election.  You just can’t avoid all of the debates, the talking heads on the cable shows, the campaign commercials and the political predictions.   Of course, the group that is probably getting the most attention is the now-famous “Tea Party.”   I’ve written about these folks before.  I’ve talked about how I really have no idea what they want and what they would do if they got elected.  All I can gather is that they are angry at everyone and they think it’s time to “clean house.”    Well, that sounds all well and good and it is a very simple phrase that appeals to a lot of folks in this country who are too lazy to think about the real issues that confront our nation.   Still, there are enough yahoos in the good ole USA that some of these Tea Party candidates actually have a chance of winning.

So, let’s take a minute to think about what would happen if a “Tea Partyer” is sent to Congress in January.

The first thing that he will be asked to do is to vote for the Speaker of the House (the position currently held by Nancy Pelosi).  There will be two people running for that position, one nominated by the Democratic Party and one by the Republican Party.  There will not be a nominee from the Tea Party, so from the very beginning this new person will have to cast their lot with one of the established parties.  And, of course, they’re going to vote with the Republican Party.

Abortion

Then they have to try to get on a committee that will be of great relevance to their district.  If the Republican Party takes over the House of Representatives, as is predicted, the chairman of every committee will be a Republican.  So, that young, brash Tea Party person, who may have spent some time during the election bashing both parties, will then have to make an appointment with the chairman of the committee they want to be on and perhaps have to explain to him why they spent the election season bashing his party.  Now, won’t that be interesting?

Then the Tea Partyer will start voting.  One of the most important matters they vote on first is the budget.  Generally speaking, Members of Congress get to vote on two versions of a budget – one offered by the Democrats and one by the Republicans.  So, the new Tea Party person will have only two options.   Oh, sure, he or she can put together their own budget on behalf of himself and the maybe 3 other Tea Partyers in the House.  That budget might have suggestions like cutting all federal support for public education, eliminating the Medicare program and reducing the minimum wage.  The final tally on that proposal would be in the neighborhood of 4 in favor and 431 against.  Now, that is really shaking up Washington!

So, what it will come down to ultimately is that these Tea Party folks will

Abortion

wind up voting with the Republican Party 95 percent of the time.  Oh, sure, they’ll go to the floor of the House and give a fiery speech about the “special interests” and the old ways of Washington that need to be changed.  They will then make thousands of copies of that speech and mail it to their constituents to show how they are “fighting” for the common man.  Their constituents won’t know that when they gave the speech there was no one else on the floor or in the galleries except for an intern or two.

They will accomplish nothing.  They will vote with the Republican Party.  But their constituents will have no idea.  They will just be thrilled that they sent a “fighter” to Washington, D.C. to shake things up!

Is this a great country or what?

 

October 11, 2010

Election Day and Abortion – Vote!

Posted by Pat Richards under Aborticentrism, Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Candidates, Abortion Centers, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Heroes, Abortion Information, Abortion Law, Abortion lies, Abortion Medical, Abortion Rights, Supreme Court, Vote | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[130] Comments 

 

Abortion Issue

 

Besides being the day before my birthday, November 2 is Election Day.  If you are concerned about the abortion issue, this is a rather important election.

At this moment, both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives are controlled by the Democratic Party and, for the most part, the Democrats support abortion rights.  Still, the votes in the House and the Senate are often very close because there are a number of Democrats who are pro-life.  We saw the impact of that situation when the Congress considered health care reform and a number of pro-life Democrats who supported the bill forced President Obama to assure them that the new law would not fund abortions.  Desperate for votes, Obama took the extraordinary step of signing an Executive Order confirming that the new law would not pay for abortions.  That satisfied those Democrats, so they voted for the bill.

Since the Democrats are the majority party in both houses, it means that every chairman of every committee is a Democrat.  And it is in the committees where all the action is.

Every year, pro-life Members of Congress introduced legislation that would in one way or another outlaw abortion.  These bills can take different approaches but the bottom line is they want to make abortion illegal again.  When those bills are introduced, they are usually referred to the Judiciary Committees.  The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is John Conyers, who is pro-choicer.  When he sees these anti-abortion bills, he says thank you very much and proceeds to stuff them in a drawer, basically killing any chance of their being considered.  They are DOA.  The same thing happens in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 

Abortion

 

But this November, it is very possible that Democrats in the House will lose a number of seats and the Republicans could actually be in the majority.  If that occurs, come next January, when the new Congress is sworn in, a bill that is introduced to outlaw abortion could very well go to a new Chairman of that committee who would probably be pro-life.  In that case, it is very possible that that chairman could then take steps to move that bill for consideration.  Then the battle will be on.  Yes, President Obama will be there for us to veto any bad bill but the pro-choice forces will have to mobilize, raise money, etc. to fight the bill.

Then there is the U.S. Senate.  When President Obama has to nominate someone for the Supreme Court, the nomination goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is run by pro-choicer Pat Leahy.  The current chairman will do everything he can to assure that Obama’s nomination is granted smooth sailing in the committee and on the floor of the Senate.

But should the Senate fall into the hands of the Republican Party, then you will have probably Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah as chairman and he is very pro-life.  So, a nomination that is sent to his committee will have a much tougher time of it.  Indeed, if the Republicans take over the Senate, there is a good chance that Obama’s pro-choice nominations will be defeated and he’ll have to nominate someone who is “neutral” on the issue of abortion.

So, the bottom line is you need to vote.

You need to do your research, find out who is running and vote for the one who is pro-choice.

You’ve got the power – use it.

 

October 5, 2010

Go Get ‘Em, Bill

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Blog, Abortion Candidates, Abortion Centers, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Heroes, Abortion Information, Abortion Law, Abortion lies, Abortion Medical, Abortion Pill, Abortion Pregnancy Centers, Abortion Rights, Abortion Violence | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[25] Comments 

Abortion

Bill Baird.

The self-proclaimed “Father of the Abortion Rights Movement.”

On April 6, 1967, before an overflow audience in excess of 2,000 people, he spoke at Boston University about the public’s right to privacy in matters of sexuality, including the right to birth control and abortion. At the end of the lecture he was promptly arrested by members of the Boston police department’s vice squad and charged with publicly exhibiting birth control and abortion devices and giving away a single condom and package of contraceptive foam to a nineteen-year-old, unmarried female student. The event made headlines nationwide.  He spent months in jail.  As far as I know, he is the only private person to have two Supreme Court cases in his name, both dealing with the right to privacy.

Now, Bill Baird is close to 80 years old and is barely making it on his social security payments.  In addition, he has been a pariah within the pro-choice community for decades.

Things started going downhill for Bill years ago when charges of womanizing started spreading throughout the feminist community.  Who knows if the allegations were true or not?   All I know is that Bill would tell me stories about how women practically attacked him, but it didn’t matter.  The stories were already out there and could not be roped in.  Contributing to his fall from grace was his constant self-promotion.  Whenever he went to a pro-choice convention or if he just had the ear of one person, the conversation was all about him, all about his Supreme Court cases, all about his press releases (which he literally carried around with him).  He was clearly yearning for attention.  It was both obnoxious and pathetic at the same time.

When I joined the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, I ran into

Abortion

him at some event and he told me he needed money to attend the annual “Right to Life” convention.  I asked him why he would even go to their meeting and he said he thought it was important to protest outside their hotel.  He bragged about how his protests would get “lots of media attention.”  At one point, he even told me that the anti-abortion folks were very interested in paying him money if he came over to their side.  I always suspected that was a bunch of crap and that he was telling me this in the hopes that our side would give him money instead.  It was just an exhausting and very sad occasion whenever I saw him.

Then, in 1993 NCAP decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Roe

vWade with a formal, black-tie dinner dance at the elegant Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.  It was the first of its kind and we invited a number of pro-choice “celebrities” to join us.  As much as I knew how Bill rubbed folks the wrong way, I felt he should be invited to the event because of how much he had done for our cause.

So, I called him and told him we’d like him to join us as one of our “dignitaries.”  He started crying.  He said through his tears that he hadn’t been invited to a pro-choice function in decades and he thanked me profusely.  Then he added “but, Pat, I can’t afford to rent a tuxedo.”

“Okay, let me work on that Bill.”

Within hours, I was talking to Susan Hill, one of the original founders of NCAP and not one of Bill’s fans, but she still offered to pay for his tuxedo.  I called him back and told him to make plans to come to Washington.  We paid for his hotel room as well.  For the first time, Bill Baird was speechless.

The day of the dinner dance, I gave Bill the opportunity to talk to our

membership to give them a historical perspective of his work.  He was getting a great reaction until he said at one point that he felt the pro-choice community had an “obligation” to pay him money for all the work he had done for them over the years.  In the audience were other leaders of the movement who had sacrificed just as much.  His comments were incredibly obnoxious – and it was textbook Bill Baird.  Always making trouble.  Always approaching things with a sense of entitlement.

Of course, he was oblivious to the fact that he had once again pissed everyone off.  So, that night he came to the dinner party, all dressed up in his rented tuxedo.  He took the opportunity to catch up with some old friends, if they could actually be called “friends.”  I even saw him dancing later on in the evening with Susan.  He was beaming all night.  As he was leaving, he came up and gave me a big hug and said “I’ll never forget what you did for me.”

Abortion

The next day, on the front page of the “Style” section of the Washington Post, there was a big photograph of Bill Baird, surrounded by the press, holding court.  He was in his element.  He had yet another press article for his collection.

After that night, Bill went back to New York.  When Susan Hill died, I called him and I could hear him sobbing.  When he got composed, he told me how he needed money to go to the next Right to Life convention.  “There’s still a lot of work to be done, Pat” he said before he hung up.

Go get ‘em, Bill.

 

September 21, 2010

The Future of Legal Abortion

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion Advocates, Abortion Blog, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Information, Abortion Medical, Abortion Mifeprex, Abortion Pill, Abortion Rates, Late Term Abortion, Late Term Abortions, Obama, Obama is Pro Choice, The Future of Legal Abortion | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
[15] Comments 
Abortion and the Supreme Court

Abortion and the Supreme Court

Okay, boys and girls.  It’s time for a lesson in civics.

The fate of legalized abortion rests with you – the voters.  Yeah, that might sound kind of corny but it’s true.

Let’s talk about whether or not abortion will remain legal in this country.  It drives me nuts when I hear someone say that Roe v Wade is “settled law.”  That’s total bull crap.  No, it’s double bull crap.

That issue of whether or not abortion will remain legal in this country ultimately rests with the U.S. Supreme Court.  Sure, the Congress could theoretically pass a constitutional amendment overturning Roe v Wade, but they tried that in the early 1980’s and got crushed.  They ain’t gonna try it again for a very, very long time.

So, the anti-abortion crowd has to look to the Supreme Court for assistance.  At this point, there are 6 members of the Court (out of 9) that appear to support legal abortion.  That includes Justices Sotomayer and Kagan, who have not voted on the issue publicly but who we assume are pro-choice.  I say it “appears” that we have six votes because most people count Justice Anthony Kennedy as pro-choice.  The problem is he is a wild card and has supported abortion restrictions.  Then there are three solid votes against legal abortion.  So far, so good.  The home team is up 6-3.

But let’s say that Kennedy suddenly starts having reservations about legal abortion for some reason.  If he switched, that brings the score to 5-4 in favor of Roe v Wade.  Then, jump to the year 2012 and suppose that President Obama is defeated for re–election, which is a distinct possibility at this point.  So, all of a sudden we have a President Palin or Gingrich (hand me the barf bag, please) to deal with come January, 2013.  Then, let’s say that one of our solid votes dies or resigns from the Court.  Justice Ginsburg, who is old and ill, comes to mind.  That means that the new right wing President suddenly has an opportunity to appoint a conservative judge who would be in favor of reversing Roe.  That makes if 5-4 for the bad guys.

Now, please don’t tell me that the Supreme Court relies very heavily on “precedent.”   That’s garbage.  The Supreme Court, as we saw in the Gore-Bush election case, is now a very partisan institution.  These are not sage, respected jurists who sit back with an open mind, then research the issue and hand down their opinion.  No, they already know how they feel about the basic issues and when a case comes before them they just pretend to listen to the oral arguments, then they go back to their chambers, tell their clerks what their decision is and instruct them to figure out the reasoning.

So, the bottom line is whether or not we have a pro-choice President or not.

And that’s entirely up to you.

 

September 10, 2010

Abortion Dr(?). Steve Brigham in News again

Posted by Elena Carvin under Abortion & Religion, Abortion Candidates, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Law, Abortion Medical, Abortion Pill, Abortion Rights, American Women's Services, Bad Apples, Pendergraft, Stephen Brigham, Steve Brigham, Vicki Saporta | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |
[15] Comments 
Abortion Doctor

Abortion Doctor

On Wednesday, New Jersey officials filed legal documents seeking to suspend the medical license of an abortion provider involved in a procedure that critically injured an 18-year-old woman who was 21 weeks pregnant, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The physician, Steven Brigham, owns American Women’s Services, which operates clinics in New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The filing is the first step in revoking a medical license.

According to the filing by Attorney General Paula Dow’s (D) office, Brigham “has committed serious violations” of the rules of medical practice and “would represent a clear and imminent danger to the public health, safety and welfare.” The filing stems from a case involving a woman who “suffered a uterine perforation and small bowel injury” during an abortion at one of Brigham’s Maryland clinics. Brigham allegedly initiated the abortion process at his New Jersey clinic and told the woman to travel to his Maryland clinic for the completion of the procedure.

Brigham has never been licensed to perform abortions in Maryland, and he is not authorized to perform the procedure after 18 weeks’ gestation in New Jersey, the complaint says. However, Brigham performed about 50 abortions from January through August 2010 at his Elkton, Md., office, using a “two-step process” initiated in New Jersey and completed in Maryland, the complaint alleges. The complaint also alleges that Brigham created false records or asked others to create them stating that two physicians working for him — George Shepard and Kimberly Walker — performed the procedures in Maryland. Shepard and Walker deny that that they performed any procedures (McCullough/Goldstein, Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/9).

Md. Case ‘Not Representative’ of Abortion Care, Letter to the Editor Says

As the Maryland Board of Physicians investigates the allegations against Brigham, “it is important to note that cases like this are not representative of the state of abortion care in Maryland or throughout the country,”

National Abortion Federation President and CEO Vicki Saporta writes in a letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun. The case in Maryland is “just the latest problem for [Brigham], who has come under fire from state licensing boards and health departments throughout his career,” Saporta continues, noting that Brigham “has had his medical license temporarily suspended, relinquished or revoked in five states.”

Abortion is “one of the safest medical procedures” in the U.S., Saporta writes, adding that the “repeated disciplinary actions” against Brigham indicate that he “operates outside recognized standards for quality abortion care” (Saporta, Baltimore Sun, 9/8).

Related Articles
 

August 18, 2010

The Donohue Show

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion Blog, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Information, Abortion Late, Abortion Medical, Abortion Pill, Late Term Abortion | Tags: , , , , , |
[27] Comments 
Abortion Pill

Abortion Pill

I follow the discussion on the Abortion.com Facebook page very closely and I appreciate the moderator posting some of my pieces.  From what I can see, a number of people are interested in some of the more unique stories about the days when I was at the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.   I’m not sure if this will be to your liking, but…..

At about 2:00 p.m. on March 10, 1993 I learned that Doctor David Gunn had been murdered as he approached his clinic in Pensacola, Florida.  For months, those of us in the abortion provider world knew something was going to happen.  Anti-abortion terrorism was spreading everywhere, folks were on edge.  I have to say that when I got the call, I was not in total shock.

The murder was front page news for several days.  A short time later, I got a call from a producer from “The Donohue Show.”  For you youngsters out there (or you oldsters who can’t remember where your bathroom is anymore), Phil Donohue was basically the first “Oprah.”  The producer said they wanted me to join Susan Hill, Doctor Tom Tucker, David Gunn, Jr. and a Mr. Paul Hill on the show a few days later.  I readily accepted the invitation.  Unfortunately, Doctor Tucker got stuck in a snow storm but Doctor Takey Crist, an abortion provider from North Carolina, chartered a private jet at the last minute to fill in for Tucker.  Susan Hill owned 8 clinics at the time and employed Doctor Gunn.  David Gunn, Jr., the son of the murdered doctor, had already become a celebrity of sorts by that time.  None of us knew who Paul Hill was.

When we got to the television station, we were escorted to the “Green Room” which is where we all met Paul Hill.  By that time, we had learned that he would represent the anti-abortion side on the show.  I shook his hand, he was very cordial.  When we went up to the stage, I was seated next to him.  Then, once the show started, Paul quickly told the world that it was “justifiable homicide” to kill an abortion doctor.  The crowd, a liberal New York crowd, collectively gasped.  They had never heard such a thing (neither had I).  I thought the audience was going to lynch him.  His remarks were especially outrageous in that the son of the murdered doctor was sitting three chairs from him on the stage.

I answered a few easy questions, although later on my friends said I had the “deer in the headlight” look about me.  At one point, I was talking about how some police were letting protestors block the clinics and I said that “we HAD a sheriff in Corpus Christi, Texas, who testified that he would never arrest the protestors because he was pro-life.”  Unfortunately, millions and millions of people across the country thought I said we “HAVE” a sheriff down there.  The next day I got a call from the sheriff of Corpus Christi who, screaming in my ear, told me that his office was being barraged with phone calls from angry pro-choicers.  I felt terrible when he told me he was actually pro-choice – but the damage had already been done.

During one commercial, Phil Donohue himself came over to me and said “Okay, someone is going to call in and ask you about that abortion pill.  What is it called, RU-483 or something?”    I told him it was RU-486.  Minutes later, “Marianne from Brooklyn” called to ask about the abortion pill.  I found out later that “Marianne” was actually one of the co-producers of the show calling from backstage.

Then there was Doctor Crist.  He was a large, dashing bearded doctor of Greek descent who on that day was not going to take any crap from Paul Hill.  He massacred him verbally, got more applause from the audience than anyone.  After the show, over the course of the next few weeks, his clinic received hundreds of calls from women who wanted to meet Doctor Crist personally.  He told me later that he received at least 50 proposals of marriage in the mail after his appearance.  Ah, the power of television.

During the commercials, I talked to Paul Hill and over the next year I saw him at a number of anti-abortion protests.  He became the national spokesman for the “justifiable homicide” doctrine.  Then, about 15 months later I got another call that Doctor Baird Britton and his bodyguard had been assassinated in Pensacola.  They were both shot by Paul Hill.

 

August 16, 2010

Pendergraft Abortion

Posted by Elena Carvin under Abortion Blog, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Pendergraft Abortion | Tags: , , , , |
[17] Comments 
Pendergraft Abortion

Pendergraft Abortion

A Florida abortionist’s medical license has been suspended a fourth time — and a prominent pro-life group is outraged the man hasn’t been drummed from the practice altogether.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman has tracked abortionist James Pendergraft — a “proven quack,” as Newman describes him — for years and tells OneNewsNow that a fourth suspension is not enough. The medical board, says the pro-life spokesman, is apparently missing the point: the impact on people.  “[He has] endangered women [and] killed women,” Newman states. “And so Operation Rescue is calling for not just a suspension of his medical license, but finally and completely an absolute revocation of his license before more women and children die.”

The pro-life leader describes Pendergraft’s five abortion clinics in Florida as “a menace to the public” that should be shut down. “The Florida Board of Medicine seriously dropped the ball by not revoking Pendergraft and forcing the closure of his clinics,” he says in a press release.

While outraged that Pendergraft’s license was not permanently revoked, Newman says people can have the last word on the subject.

Operation Rescue’s website contains contact information for Florida officials, and Newman is urging people nationwide to use that information to deliver a clear message to the Florida Board of Medicine that Pendergraft should be pushed out of the profession for good.  According to Operation Rescue, Pendergraft’s clinics — manned by other abortionists — continue to operate while he is on suspension.

 

August 12, 2010

Guaranteeing Access to Abortion Clinics – The Time the Government Helped

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion, Abortion & Religion, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Blog, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Heroes, Abortion Information, Abortion Late, Abortion Law, Abortion Medical, Abortion Pill, Abortion Rates, Abortion Rights, Community Development Block Grant, Cranston, Late Term Abortion | Tags: , , , , , |
[29] Comments 
Cranston Abortion

Cranston Abortion

This past weekend, I got a great treat.  I was alone in my house.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love my family.  But I have to admit it was fun to just putter around the house, drinking wine at 1:00 in the afternoon, taking a nap, drinking wine at 5:00.  At one point, however, I found some old newspaper clippings and noticed an article about something I was involved in when I worked for the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.

In the 1990’s the anti-abortion movement would hold massive demonstrations in front of abortion clinics.  It seemed like they could get hundreds of people at the drop of a hat to converge on a local facility.  They would march to the front door and sit down, preventing women from entering the clinic.  Of course, the clinic staff would immediately call the police but in conservative cities like Fort Wayne, Indiana or Birmingham, Alabama the police would just watch the demonstration.  That’s right – they would do absolutely nothing.  Hundreds of protestors were clearly trespassing but the police would just sit on their hands and let the demonstrators do their thing.  It was totally outrageous.

One day I was talking to a friend of mine who worked for Senator Alan Cranston of California and I told her about this problem we were having.  We started to think about how we could get local police to enforce the trespassing laws in those cities.  We came up with a brilliant idea.

In those days, just about every city in the country received “Community Development Block Grant” (CDBG) funds from the federal government.   These CDBG dollars were used for all kinds of projects:  to build affordable housing, construct new sewer lines, repair roads, etc.  Cities got millions and millions of these dollars (I know, those were the good ole days).

So, one night, when the U.S. Senate was in session Senator Cranston proposed an amendment to a bill saying in so many words that if the police did not do their job and arrest the trespassers, then that city would lose its CDBG funds.  Before the anti-abortion Senators knew what was going on, the amendment passed and ultimately became law.

The first thing we did was write a letter to every mayor of every major city in the country to tell them about this new law, just to put them on notice.  Our announcement caused an explosion around the country.  For example, within two days of the letter going out, I got a call from the Mayor of Philadelphia asking me about the new law.  No, that’s not entirely accurate.  What he actually said was “What the *%$)(#*@&% is this new law all about?   What the *#%()@#*%$# are you doing?”

After picking myself off the floor, I politely told him that he just had to make sure the police did their job and he would have nothing to worry about.  “*$()@*@(#%$,” he concluded and hung up the phone.  We never had a problem in Philadelphia again with protestors.

Also, whenever we heard about a demonstration that might take place, just to make sure I would call the Mayor of that city and warn him or her that they stood to lose a crap-load of money if the police ignored the protestors.  All of a sudden, police started making arrests in the most conservative of cities.

A lot of people are down on government.  They say there’s too much of it, it’s broken, keep it out of my face.  I get the argument.  But there are times like this one when government actually helped us guarantee that women would be able to exercise their constitutional right to have an abortion.

Is this a great country, or what?

 

July 31, 2010

Do Anti-Abortion Laws Cause More Late Term Abortions?

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion & Religion, Abortion Advocates, Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Doctor Murder, Abortion Information, Abortion Late, D&E, Hyde Amendment, Late Term Abortion, Not Informed | Tags: , , , , , |
[23] Comments 
Henry Hyde Abortion

Henry Hyde Late Abortion Creator

The anti-abortion movement thinks abortion should be illegal.  Good for them, go for it, knock yourself out.

I would guess, however, that if they had their druthers, the anti-abortion crowd would also say that if you’re gonna have an abortion you should have it as early as possible.  I mean, it goes without saying that if you wait too long, the fetus will grow and grow and grow.  And no one likes the idea of abortion at 23 or 24 weeks.  Meanwhile, the vast majority of women who get “later” abortions are minors or poor women.  But here’s the irony – it might be the anti-abortion movement that is responsible for a lot of these late term abortions.

Hey, Pat, are you off your rocker?   Have you totally lost it?

Chill out, folks, lemme explain.

A woman receiving Medicaid assistance gets pregnant and decides to have an abortion.  She calls the local clinic and they tell her that the price for a first trimester abortion is $400.  That’s a lot of money for this woman.   Years ago, the anti-abortion movement enacted the “Hyde Amendment” which says that you cannot use your Medicaid card to get an abortion unless your life was endangered.   Now, if there was no such thing as the Hyde Amendment, this woman would just go to that clinic, give them her Medicaid card and have the abortion right away.    But, instead, she is now looking for $400 that she didn’t anticipate needing.  She doesn’t have a credit card, no bank account to speak of, no rich friends.   So, she has to spend precious time finding the $400 somewhere.  Meanwhile, the baby is growing.  Ultimately, she might get the $400 but by that time she is more advanced and abortions cost more money the later they are performed.   It’s a viscous cycle.  Ultimately, she might get the cash but she’s now in her 19th week.

Were it not for the Hyde Amendment, the abortion would have been performed within days of her discovering her pregnancy.

Then there are the minors.    A 15 year old girl discovers she is pregnant.  Now, at that age she might delay any conversation about her situation because she just might not be sure that she is pregnant.  But once she verifies it, the chances are that she lives in a state that requires her to get the permission of her parents.   These laws, of course, are all courtesy of that anti-abortion movement again.   But the girl’s family is not Ozzie and Harriet land.  In fact, she is petrified of going to her parents, one of whom beats her on a regular basis. So she waits and waits, perhaps thinking she might have a miscarriage and the issue will just go away.  In denial, she remains mum.  Then, her stomach starts to expand and, despite her wearing loose clothes, she ultimately is panicking that her parents will notice.  Only at that point, perhaps now in her 18th week, does she reluctantly go to her parents to give them the news and, hopefully, get their permission for an abortion.

If there were no parental consent laws in her state and she felt she could not talk to her parents, she would have found a good friend or close relative that she could confide in and secured the abortion much earlier.

Ironic, isn’t it?

 

July 12, 2010

Abortion and Normal Rockwell

Posted by Pat Richards under Abortion Discussion, Abortion Doctor, Abortion Doctor Murder, Abortion Heroes, Abortion Information, Abortion Late, Abortion Law, Abortion Medical, Abortion Mifeprex, Abortion Pill, Abortion Rights, Abortion RU486 | Tags: , , , , , , |
[118] Comments 
Abortion

Abortion

Yesterday, to escape this blasted heat, I went into Washington, D.C. to catch an exhibit of Norman Rockwell paintings that had been donated by Stephen Speilberg and George Lucas.  It was nice just taking my time walking around, examining every amazing detail in Rockwell’s works.

At one point I came across a piece entitled “Free Speech.”  The piece focuses on one man, standing in the middle of a crowd.  The caption next to the painting said this was a man who disagreed with the crowd on some issue, but his opponents were listening to him intently, respecting his right to say what was on his mind even though they ultimately would not support him.   I was almost brought to tears.

Today, of course, that person would have been shouted down, totally discounted as some nut ball by his opponents.  That’s just where we are as a society these days.  We just don’t listen anymore.  Worse, when someone tries to suggest something contrary to our beliefs, we try to silence him with harsh words, with guffaws, with rolling eyes, as if this person could never say anything that was remotely of some benefit.

Of course, we see this kind of behavior all the time in the abortion debate.  Indeed, the harsh back and forth is probably more pronounced when discussing the abortion issue than any other issue.  We are so locked into our beliefs, the battle lines are drawn oh-so-clearly and you cannot cross them lest you be accused of ceding some valuable territory to the opposition.  Just watch an abortion debate on television.  You know exactly what I mean.  It’s a constant screaming match.    “Abortion is murder!”   “A woman has the right to control her body!”   And on and on and on.

No one is communicating.  They’re just yelling over each other.  Actually, years ago I stopped watching these “debates.”

I’m pro-choice, I’ve worked for pro-choice organizations for years.  But, much to the chagrin of many of my colleagues, years ago I started reaching out to pro-life people in an attempt to try to get inside their head, to learn more about them and, hopefully, to allow them to learn more about me .  I actually started engaging the other side after I learned that a number of the abortion clinics that I represented engaged in the same discussions with their local anti-abortion activists.

At the same time, I challenged my pro-choice colleagues to address the tougher questions about abortion.  When I visited the clinics, I talked to the women and it became clear to me that they were not there to make a statement about their constitutional rights or to promote some feminist ideology.  They were there because they were in a difficult situation and they needed help.  They also had to deal with something that pro-choice organizations would rather not address – they were carrying a baby that they didn’t want.   I soon discovered that the bottom line was that abortion is all so complicated.

So, amidst the screaming and yelling, the women continue to seek abortion services.  I think that anti-abortion folks owe these women more respect and the pro-choice activists should not try to reduce this issue to a simple bumper sticker.  Both sides should listen more to the other side with the goal of having a civil debate about abortion – kinda like that group in the Normal Rockwell painting.

 

« Previous Page — Next Page »