Law Professors Explain Why Ultrasound Laws are Constitutional

There are few pro-life initiatives that more irritate—and frighten—pro-abortionists than laws that give pregnant women a chance to look at their unborn child before they make an irreversible “choice.” Such laws often are contested in court and as I what I hope is a helpful service I’d like to re-run a piece I wrote a while back with just a few updates.

Law professors Scott W. Gaylord and Thomas J. Molony eloquently made the case that the much-maligned (by pro-abortionists) ultrasound laws are constitutional in an op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In so doing, Gaylord and Molony remind the lay reader of five truths that are often overlooked in the back-and-forth over abortion in general, laws that give women a chance to look at an image of their unborn child, in particular.

#1. “Those criticizing the growing number of ultrasound laws frequently ignore the fact that the Constitution permits states to try to dissuade women from having an abortion.” They cite, for example, the 1992 Planned Parenthood of “Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey” decision where the High Court expressly acknowledged that a state may “further its legitimate goal of protecting the life of the unborn by enacting legislation aimed at ensuring a decision that is mature and informed, even when in so doing the state expresses a preference for childbirth over abortion.”

#2. These laws do have an impact, which, of course, is why pro-abortionists so loath them. Gaylord and Molony, who teach at the Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, North Carolina, cite a 2011 Quinnipiac University study, whose primary motivation (if you go the study itself) “was to determine if the anecdotal evidence on ultrasound laws was true: did giving women the opportunity to view their unborn fetus reduce the probability that they would have an abortion.” The answer? “[U]ltrasound requirement laws reduce the odds of a woman having an abortion quite substantially.”

#3. “The Supreme Court already has considered –and rejected”– the argument made of late that requiring abortionists “to display and describe ultrasound images violates their right to be free from compelled speech.” The court has “held that, in the context of ‘the practice of medicine,’ physicians were ‘subject to reasonable licensing and regulation by the state’ and consequently could be compelled to provide disclosures about childbirth and abortion,” Gaylord and Molony explain.

#4. “The criticisms of speech-and-display requirements, therefore, must be understood for what they are–critiques of the policy choices that state legislatures across the country are making,” they write. “To the extent those critical of these policy choices seek a constitutional prohibition on mandatory ultrasounds, they actually are advocating a return to the standard set forth in Roe v. Wade, under which virtually all abortion regulations were struck down. But Roe is not the law. Casey is. And under Casey, Pennsylvania has substantial latitude to regulate abortion by requiring the disclosure of truthful, nonmisleading information, such as ultrasound images of the fetus within.” Finally,

#5. Gaylord and Molony write, “Whether ultrasound laws represent good policy or are effective, though, is a separate question from whether such laws are constitutional. Under the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, states have a right ‘to ensure that a woman apprehend the full consequences of her decision’ and can require physicians to provide ‘truthful and not misleading’ information about the abortion procedure and the development of the fetus. As the Fifth Circuit noted in upholding the Texas speech-and-display statute this year, ultrasound images and descriptions of those images ‘are the epitome of truthful, nonmisleading information.’”

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

To Love-or Kill-Disabled Children?

Sometimes life gives me emotional whiplash. On one hand, a little Canadian girl named Emma narrates a sweet short film about her younger brother Teddy, disabled by cerebral palsy.

Teddy is valued and loved. From the New York Times op/ed introduction to the film by Teddy’s mother, Kelly Obrien:

“My daughter Emma was just 3 when Teddy was born, with a viral infection he contracted in utero that caused extensive brain damage. This short film captures her love for Teddy, one not weighted down by disappointment, sadness or a full understanding of all the ways in which he wasn’t ‘normal’…

“While I spent those first few years longing for what Teddy wasn’t, my husband, Terence, was able to appreciate him for who he was. As both mother and filmmaker, I felt it was important to find ways to represent Teddy not simply as a tragedy or a constellation of delays and disabilities, but as the sweet, happy and complicated kid that he is. Emma’s connection with Teddy reveals this perfectly.”

Hooray!

On the other, when Canadian farmer Robert Latimer murdered his daughter Tracy because she had cerebral palsy, he was hailed by a majority of Canadians as a heroic loving father and his imprisonment decried as unjust.

So why the difference? Why is Teddy valued and Tracy’s murder justified or excused even though they have (had) similar conditions?

Relativism. Teddy’s life is depicted by his family as clearly worth living and loving. Tracy was defined by her father and his supporters as having a useless life of meaningless suffering–despite her big smile for her daddy/murderer in the picture below.

But the sanctity of the lives of our ill or disabled brothers and sisters should not depend on how they are defined by family members. Rather, the Teddys and Tracys among us need to unequivocally be seen as flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood, each deserving of equal protection, acceptance, and love.

By Wesley J. Smith, NRL News

In speech to UN, Hillary Clinton again ties abortion to "gender equality"

Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, listens before her speech at a U.N. meeting to kick off events for the International Women’s Day, March 7, 2014 at United Nations headquarters.
BEBETO MATTHEWS — AP Photo

A tip of the hat to Kristen Andersen. I had not seen or heard about pro-abortion Hillary Clinton’s speech last Friday to the United Nations where she offered a “bedrock truth”: abortion and women’s advancement go hand in hand.

This tiresome mantra is nothing new, either from the broader abortion community or from Clinton herself. Clinton, formerly a senator from New York and Secretary of State, is widely expected to run for President in 2016 and is an early frontrunner.

CNN’s Politicalticker blog headlined its account of Clinton’s March 7 speech marking International Women’s Day, “Clinton ties ‘broader human development’ with women’s reproductive rights.” I search the UN webpage but couldn’t find the text, so what follows is based on various news accounts.

Seated next to United Nation Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Clinton said, “There is one lesson from the past, in particular, that we cannot afford to ignore: You cannot make progress on gender equality or broader human development, without safeguarding women’s reproductive health and rights.”

This is both wrong and tragic. As you read stories about her speech, Mrs. Clinton makes numerous unassailable assertions about the importance of equality for women and girls. But, alas, as do so many pro-abortionists, she hitches abortion to the wagon of humanity equality, in the process ignoring the equality of the unborn child. Here are just three quick examples of Clinton’s strong feelings on abortion (in reverse order):

Reporting on a June 2012 UN Conference, the Christian Science Monitor wrote of then Secretary of State Clinton

“She received applause when she added, ‘Women must be empowered to make decisions about whether and when to have children.’ The U.S. ‘will continue to work to ensure that those rights are respected in international agreements,’ Clinton said.”

At a 2009 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, pro-life Congressman Chris Smith, questioning Clinton about whether euphemisms (such as “reproductive health”) are code for abortion. “We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health,” Clinton told Smith. “And reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal, and rare.”

Way back in 1995, speaking at the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued that “The international community has long acknowledged….that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear.“

When it comes to abortion and the Clintons, like husband, like wife.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

Dr. Alveda King: Where is the Love? Rolling Stone, Planned Parenthood and Overzealous Pro-Life Camp Controversy Pours Salt on Old Wounds

The following is submitted by Dr. Alveda King:

When Rolling Stone magazine published Lauren Rankin's "The Seven Most Common Lies About Abortion," what we discovered was a misstatement of the position of the reasonable voices of proponents of life and natural women's health. Among the so called "lies" the article lists are "Abortion causes breast cancer," "Most women regret having an abortion," and "Abortion is psychologically damaging to women."

If you read the article, you will discover that there is a lot of pain and frustration on both sides of the line. The pro-choice voices believe that they represent the reproductive rights of the women who go there to the abortion clinic to be rid of the lives in their wombs. The pro-life voices believe that they are there to protect the women and their babies. One thing that both sides get right; women need respect and protection; but from what? And where are the civil rights for the babies and even the fathers? Most importantly, where is the love?

Here is the truthful platform of pro-life combined with pro-women advocacy groups:

Many women regret abortions. I am one of the women whoexperienced abortion and live to regret it.

Abortion and carcinogenic birth control -- more appropriately termed "fertility blockers" are linked to breast cancer.

In many cases, abortion has been found to be linked to cases ofsuicide, depression and other psychological disorders.

In many cases where physical and psychological issues are noted in post-abortive women, it is often also noted that no such issues were present in the lives of these mothers prior to their abortions.

Added to these facts are the truth that fathers also suffer damaging psychological effects after their children are aborted.

In her book RECALL ABORTION, Janet Morana uncovers the duplicitous agenda of the pro-abortion industry, debunking lies such as those told by Rolling Stone and Planned Parenthood. 

SNMA spokesman Kevin Burke and Oil of Joy Ministries have documented case studies of links to abortion and incarceration. 

Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider is often behind many reports and studies such as this one by Rolling Stone.

What Planned Parenthood and their advocates refuse to admit is that abortion numbers in New York and Mississippi are upside down with more African American babies being aborted than born. In 2010 in Georgia, my home state, 53% of all abortions were on Black mothers and babies; with a distant 23% on Hispanic minorities, and 24% on Caucasian and "others."

Finally, let's remember that the driving force behind the HHS mandate which seeks to force tax payers and the working class to fund fertility blockers and easy access to abortion is Planned Parenthood's never satisfied lust for our money and our blood.

These lies of the abortion industry hide behind clever promises to end poverty and improve our quality of life. As Father Frank Pavone often asks: "How can killing the poor serve the poor?" He has been reminding us for years that "we are our brothers' keepers." I add that we are also our sisters' and our daughters' keepers. I don't know about you, but my daughters and granddaughters; my sons and grandsons need good jobs and good education; not the pain and suffering that are often linked to abortion and carcinogenic birth control. 

Let's end the word games and face the facts. Abortion kills babies and hurts mothers and fathers. Stop the lies. Defund Planned Parenthood. Stop the HHS Mandate. Recall abortion. Let's make love and life, not war on the wombs of women.

Contact: Leslie Palma

Free Birth Control Does Increase Risky Sex

According to the study "Change in Sexual Behavior With Provision of No-Cost Contraception," published online Thursday, March 5th, 2014 by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, little evidence was found to support concerns of increased sexual risk-taking behavior subsequent to greater access to no-cost contraception.

Walter and Lori Hoye founders of the Issues4Life Foundation, find evidence within the same study contrary to the studies published conclusion disagree and are alarmed at the blatant disregard of significant facts within the study's data.

USA Today's March 7th, 2014 article titled "Study: Free birth control does not increase risky sex" stated: "researchers looked at data on 7,751 participants ages 14 to 45 who completed follow-up surveys. All were either sexually active with men or planning to become active when the study began. Among those without partners at the start, just 5% were virgins."

Again according to the study: "46% who were virgins at the beginning of the study were still virgins, despite their earlier intentions to start having sex."

Studying the effects FREE birth control will have on women who are already sexually active and possibly using some form of birth control will show few if any significant changes in behavior and yield the BIG abortion/more birth control result of minimal, if any increase in risky, promiscuous behavior. Similar to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and serving FREE drinks as the ship is sinking to passengers already on board.

Studying the effects FREE birth control will have on women who have NEVER been sexually active or used birth control, however will reveal different results. The study showed that just 5% were virgins among those without partners at the time of the survey. At the end of the study only 46% were still virgins, which means 54% were NO LONGER virgins. This is a 54% INCREASE in sexual activity from a group of women who started at 0% and were given FREE birth control.

• 54% INCREASE in exposure to sexually transmitted diseases
   
• 54% INCREASE in exposure to the side effects of birth control products
   
• 54% INCREASE in potential customers for BIG abortion aka Planned Parenthood
   
• 54% INCREASE in potential revenue for BIG abortion aka Planned Parenthood
   
• 54% INCREASE in hurt and harm for women

The study's Project Director and researcher at Washington University, Gina Secura says. "It's not as if getting birth control opened the floodgates' on sexual activity."

If your business gave away FREE samples and had a 54% INCREASE in customers from a customer base that would NEVER have bought your product before, wouldn't that be significant?

Not only is a 54% INCREASE in sexual activity a FLOOD and more than enough reason to continue fighting against the HHS Mandate and Obamacare, this is the same tactic used by Planned Parenthood in the 1960s when targeting Black Americans for abortions. This three (3) minute clip from Life Dynamics' Maafa21 DVD, featuring Mark Crutcher, President of Life Dynamics, Inc. in Denton, Texas and Dr. Clenard H. Childress, Jr., Pastor of the New Calvary Baptist Church in New Jersey, drives this point home.

Mark Crutcher says: "To understand what the agenda was behind the legalization of abortion, all you need to do is look at statistics from the U.S. government. Studies from the CDC show that, prior to legalization of abortion, approximately 80% of all illegal abortions were done on white women. One study in New York even found that white women had five-times as many abortions as black women. But at the moment abortion became legal, that began to reverse. And that's why the legalization of abortion was so crucial for the eugenics movement. Legalization created the ability to market abortion in the black community and, from a eugenics standpoint, that changed everything."

David Kyle, writer, director and producer of "BloodMoney," says,  "Women and girls are given this false sense of security that if they use birth control pills they won't get pregnant. Planned Parenthood knows statistically -- without a doubt -- that X number of women will get pregnant with or without birth control. Planned Parenthood knows that when someone doesn't use birth control perfectly, the failure rate just skyrockets."

Even the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood's own research arm concludes in their February 2014, "Fact Sheet" entitled "Induced Abortion in the United States" that: "Fifty-one (51%) percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method in the month they got pregnant, most commonly condoms (27%) or a hormonal method (17%).

As Christians we should not be forced to cooperate with BIG Abortion's push to target Black Americans for abortion by FLOODING our neighborhood's with birth control knowing the wholesale destruction of human lives that lies ahead.

Contact: Walter B. Hoye II, Issues4Life Foundation

Pro-abortion schizophrenia finds a new expression: Birthing Center/Abortion Clinic

Samuel Armas, who was 21-22 weeks old when doctors operated to close the lesion on his spinal column. Photo by Michael Clancy.

When you read pro-abortion blogs, there is always—always—plenty of material to add to your “you can’t make this stuff up” folder. Here’s the latest, although by the time I post this story, something new will undoubtedly be available to add.

Check out this from a post on Slate.com:

“Having a single place to go for all your pregnancy needs instead of sorting patients out depending on their preconceptions about outcome is just plain common sense. Being able to go to the same doctor to give birth and have an abortion at different times in your life is likely comforting for patients.”

Comforting?! Yup, according to Amanda Marcotte, the author of “Nation’s First Birthing Center/Abortion Clinic Opens in Buffalo. This Is Huge.”

What is Marcotte talking about? Quoting from another pro-abortion site, she sings the praises of the Birthing Center of Buffalo. We’re told the “clinic” offers “a traditional slate of gynecological services, including abortion up to 22 weeks.”

Twenty two weeks? Do you remember photographer Michael Clancy’s utterly amazing pictures of Samuel Armas, the unborn baby who was 21-22 weeks when doctors operated to close the lesion on his spinal column? (See photo.) See his hand grab the surgeon’s hand? That’s the age babies at the Birthing Center of Buffalo will have their lives snuffed out at.

The clinic is run (we’re told) by Dr. Katharine Morrison and the gimmick is that it is a place “where women who want a nonhospital birthing experience can go while having the benefit of being attended by a certified nurse midwife and an OB-GYN who has admitting privileges at the local hospital in case of complications.”

Do her abortionists also have admitting privileges when the inevitable complications occur? Or do they simply rotate between being a real doctor—and delivering live babies–and an abortionist–delivering dead babies?

The latter. At the end we learn that the “doctor” wears two hats. “The same doctor who is performing abortions is also delivering babies,” Marcotte writes.

[I wish I could remember where I first read what I consider the winner of the all-time prize for best euphemism: abortion and live births should be seen as alternative ways to “terminate” a pregnancy.]

What’s the agenda? Marcotte is straightforward. Here’s a lengthy quote that begins with the larger context:

“Which isn’t to say that there aren’t lots of OB-GYNs out there who do both abortions and deliveries, of course. But abortion is so siloed off in freestanding clinics that many doctors do most of their OB-GYN care in one office and then travel to a separate one to perform abortions. While this system can help women who are looking for abortion find it more easily, it also had the negative effect of stigmatizing abortion patients by walling them off from all the other patients seeking OB-GYN care.

“As Emily Bazelon reported in the New York Times in 2010, there’s been a move in the medical profession to rectify this problem by reintegrating abortion into mainstream medical care. ‘The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it’s a seamless part of health care for women — embraced rather than shunned,’ she writes.”

Okay, I get it. You cover the ugliness of slaughtering huge babies with the blanket of compassionate delivery of living babies. To Marcotte, it’s three cheers for the “doctor” who one minute hands a living, breathing newborn baby over to her mother and the next minute hands the assignment over to his nurse to reassemble all dead baby’s body parts.

To most people, that would be almost clinical definition of schizophrenia. But in the minds of ultra-radicals like Marcotte, it proves “There’s no contradiction there.”

I have always known that one would have to have a split personality to wash one hand in antiseptics and the other hand in the blood of unborn babies. But until today, I’d never realized that to the Marcottes of this world, it represents a badge of honor.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

How ironic. Pro-abortionists accuse pro-lifers of being "un-American"

Ilyse Hogue

As we end the week, let me offer two illustrations (in separate) posts about our benighted opposition. This first one I was not going to write about at all—it’s so stupid—but on reflection it said so much about pro-abortionists—in this case NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue—that it practically forced my hand. [1]

The first instance of Hogue’s out-to-sea observations was at the organization’s 45th anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C. on February 4. The second took place at a March 4 San Francisco fundraiser.

What was she saying? In the video blurb that Yoder includes from the February 4 speech, Hogue makes this intriguing remark:

Time after time after time they [that would be us] vote against these commonsense tools [“birth control and comprehensive sex education”]. Why? Because what they really care about is telling women and all people for that matter, that it’s their way or the highway, that there’s only one ‘right way’ for us to live our lives, and that they get to decide what that is. And that, my friends, is un-American. But we know, and guess what, they know too, that the American people are on our side.”

Let’s talk a few minutes and dissect this observation, remembering that while they are uttered in the context of self-congratulation, this is the mantra they utter time after time after time to the public.

#1. To make the most obvious point first, wouldn’t you say that in arguing that there is only “one way” to reduce abortions, isn’t NARAL saying it is “their way or the highway”? Of course. Geez.

#2. So, if the issue is public policy—which is ultimately the art of persuasion—some “way” will be adopted. That’s what we have legislatures for. Right now, because of the Roe decision as modified by Casey, abortion is legal essentially on demand in some states while others have enacted protective measures to ensure that women can make an informed choice. And speaking of “my way or the highway,” pro-abortionists will not budge an inch. They are deathly afraid women might jump off the train whose terminal is terminal for unborn children.

#3. Hogue says, “But we know, and guess what, they know too, that the American people are on our side.” Really? Do you and I know—in our heart of hearts—that the American people are on the side of the Abortion Industry?

Click here to view the video: http://www.mrctv.org/videos/naral-president-anti-abortion-anti-american

Hogue is right about one thing: both sides do know which side a majority of the American people are closer to. She just gets it backwards. It’s us.

Looks at the polls (for example, “’Wide Divide over abortion’? Nearly 60% oppose all abortions or would allow them in only a few circumstances“). Look at recent elections. Look at the stream of pro-life legislation passed in state legislatures. Look at the support for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Look at how people self-identify as pro-life or pro-choice.

Try again, Ms. Hogue, only this time look at the facts.

[1]I am indebted to Katie Yoder, writing at Newsbusters.org, for alerting me to Hogue’s remarkable statements. You can watch the brief video at newsbusters.org/blogs/katie-yoder/2014/03/07/naral-president-anti-abortion-anti-american

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

A federal judge magnificently debunks NARAL's justification for attacking women-helping centers

U.S. District Judge Deborah Chasenow

We had just learned that last Friday Judge Chasenow struck down a blatant abridgement of free speech rights, an ordinance adopted by the Montgomery County (Maryland) City Council that targeted women helping centers, described as “limited-service pregnancy resource centers.“

But I’ve since had the opportunity to read her very thoughtful 54-page decision. Her analysis is a devastating critique of the pro-abortion assault on women-helping centers.

Montgomery County (and the city of Baltimore, for that matter) is only one of the examples of NARAL-inspired attacks on women helping centers. Attempts to stifle their First and Fourteen Amendment rights are still being contested in San Francisco, Austin, as well as Baltimore.

The Montgomery City Council passed Resolution No. 16-1252 on February 1, 2010. Among other things, the resolution required public signage (in English and Spanish) to be prominently displayed in the waiting rooms of certain pregnancy resource centers that stated “the Center does not have a licensed medical professional on staff” and “the Montgomery County Health Officer encourages women who are or may be pregnant to consult with a licensed health care provider.”

What made Judge Chasenow’s decision so important is that point by point, she came to agree (as the plaintiff–Centro Tepeyac–put it) that “The Resolution is a solution in search of a problem, a condition that does not justified compelled speech.” (For us laypeople, it’s crucial to remember that free speech rights are not only about being freedom to speak but also about the “right to refrain from speaking at all”—in this case not being compelled to say what you otherwise would not.)

The nub of the rationale for these ordinances is they are needed to “safeguard the health of pregnant women.” (The irony/hypocrisy of NARAL and its allies using the “health of pregnant women” as a club to bash women-helping centers is too obvious to belabor.)

But as Judge Chasenow wrote

“The mere identification of a valid compelling interest is not sufficient, however: the restriction on speech must also actually further that interest.”

So, how does the ordinance supposedly further that interest? According to the Montgomery City Council (and other like-minded jurisdictions), limited-service pregnancy resource centers (LSPRCs) like Centro Tepeyac might mislead a pregnant woman into mistakenly believing that “an LSPRC is staffed by professionals licensed to give medical advice.” Thus misled, they “may not take important steps, including consulting appropriate medical professionals, which would protect their health or prevent adverse consequences during the pregnancy.”

But you’d think before such an obvious infringement of free speech make its way into law there would be proof that Centro Tepeyac had mislead women into thinking they were medical clinics. Right?

Wrong. The only “evidence” was a 2006 tract produced for pro-abortion Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman (Ca.), the ranking minority member at the time, by the minority staffers on the House Committee on Government Reform, and “volunteers” sent by NARAL already primed.

Judge Chasenow’s careful examination of the evidence—as opposed to pro-abortion speculation and agenda-promoting assertions—produced this litany of counterexamples (the quotes are from Judge Chasenow’s opinion):

• Dr. Ulder Tillman, Montgomery County’s Chief of Public Health since 2003, testified “in that time she has not received one complaint from someone who had sought service at either Centro Tepeyac or Birthright. She had not received any evidence that any actual pregnant women who went to an LSPR delayed seeking medical care.”
• Mariana Vera, Executive Director of Centro Tepeyac, “submitted comments and stated that at least half of the women who come in for a prergancy test are referred to them by the public clinics in Montgomery County.” Judge Chasenow added, “Those referrals continued even after passage of the Resolution.”
• Ms. Jacqueline Stippich, executive director of Shady Grove Pregnancy Center, “stated that they received forty-three percent (43%) of their clients from their advertisements where they are listed under ‘Abortion Alternatives’ in the telephone book. They opened in 1983 and have served over 30,000 women ‘without ever receiving a formal complaint for giving inaccurate information or misrepresenting our services.’ She stated that their website has four disclaimers, including one that states ‘we are not an abortion provider.’”
• “Councilmember Phil Andrews opposed the Resolution, finding that it is unnecessary as he had not received a single complaint from anyone who went to an LSPRC in his eleven years as a Councilmember.”

You get the point. Nobody—more specifically, no “actual pregnant women”—has complained about Centro Tepeyac or Birthright. The county keeps sending pregnant women there, which would be hard to square if they were actually misleading women and/or endangering their health.

One other quick thought. The Montgomery City Council (as have, I believe, all the jurisdictions that have tried to drive women-helping centers out of business) offered an incredibly tortuous interpretation of what LSPRC’s are doing so as to turn their speech into “commercial speech.” This does not receive the kind of heightened First Amendment protections afforded to non-commercial speech.

Judge Chasenow did an elaborate search, showing why LSPRC’s speech could not remotely be construed as commercial speech. But the bottom line is the most obvious explanation: they don’t charge anything! Their services are free!

Will this stop NARAL from going after women-helping centers? Of course not. They are NARAL’s competition and every baby they save is one that Planned Parenthood loses.

But everyone who is defending LSPRCs should read Judge Chasenow’s brilliantly persuasive opinion. For clarity, content, and careful reasoning, it would be difficult to surpass.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

ACTION ALERT - Senate Bill 3076, Illinois Physician's Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment

Senate Bill 3076 - POLST bill is in the Senate Public Health Committee 

SB 3076 amends the Illinois Physician's Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment [POLST] form to allow for "practitioners" other than physicians to sign the POLST form.  The other "practitioners" include "advanced practical nurse, physician's assistant or licensed resident after completion of one year in a program."  It requires POLST forms to be honored by health facilities.

Problems with SB 3076:

The POLST form, which gives no distinctions for terminal and non-terminal conditions, is more for removing "life-sustaining" treatment than for protecting patients with "life-sustaining" treatment.  SB 3076 would change the long-standing relationship of doctor and patient in matters of end-of-life decisions by having nurses and even less qualified physician's assistants talk to patients about these decisions and authorize "actionable medical orders" including "do-no-resuscitate" orders even in non-terminal situations.

A patient who signs a POLST form can check a box "do-not-attempt-resuscitation" if he/she stops breathing and the pulse stops.  This is an "actionable medical order" to do nothing even if CPR would clearly be called for in a medical situation.  For example, an allergic reaction to a medication can stop the breathing and pulse, but most patients would want to have CPR.  The POLST form says NO.

Also, many elderly and frail patients may not understand the various options available to them with a POLST form, and so should have better education and options that the POLST form does not give.

Pro-Life has broad concerns with the POLST forms.  One clear concern is that private foundations that have put their money into promoting POLST have also given large amounts of money to the Euthansia organizations.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

SB 3076  -- State Senator John Mulroe]-- is in the Senate Public Health Committee and will be heard in committee when the Senate returns after the Illinois Primaries on March 18th.

Please contact your state senator this week and urge him/her to vote NO on SB 3076 - the POLST bill, which will change who can sign the POLST form from the long-standing authority of doctors, to include those persons who are advance practice nurses and physician's assistants. You can find you legislator's contact information at: http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/DistrictOfficialSearchByAddress.aspx

The Public Health Committee Members are:

Chairman John Mulroe

Mattie Hunter

Napoleon Harris, III

Kwame Raoul

Heather A. Steans

Patricia Van Pelt

Dave Syverson 

Dari M. LaHood

Jim Oberweis

ANOTHER IMPORTANT ACTION ITEM:

REGISTER ONLINE WITH THE ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN ORDER TO FILE WITNESS SLIPS (YOUR VIEWS ON LEGISLATION) FOR THE SENATE PUBLIC HEALTH COMMITTEE AGAINST SB 3076.   PLEASE FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS BELOW.   AFTER YOU HAVE REGISTERED YOU CAN FILE WITNESS SLIPS.. YOU WILL ALSO BE REGISTERED TO FILE WITNESS SLIPS ON OTHER PRO-LIFE RELATED LEGISLATION THAT WE ALERT YOU TO.

REGISTER NOW OR BY MARCH 13TH, WHEN SB 3076 IS OFFICIALLY POSTED FOR A HEARING, AND YOU CAN FILE A WITNESS SLIP AGAINST IT.

STEPS TO REGISTER ONLINE:

Go to the Illinois General Assembly Website at www.ilga.gov

At the website, click on "GA Dashboard" found in red under "Reports and Inguiry"

See website link here:      http://www.ilga.gov/

At the Dashboard site, click on "Register" on the left column

See Dashboard link here:     http://my.ilga.gov/

At the "Create an Account" page, follow the requests to put in your email and create your password.   Check that you agree to the Terms and Agreements and then click "register."

Now that you have created an account, you can "log in" when ever you need to file a witness slip.

WHILE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO FILE A WITNESS SLIP AGAINST SB 3076 UNTIL IT IS RE-POSTED FOR PUBLIC HEALTH ON OR ABOUT MARCH 13 [AND AFTER] , FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW ON HOW TO DO THIS:

First, follow the directions above to get to the GA Dashboard once you are registered.

When you are there, click "log in" found at the upper right of the screen.

Then click "Senate" at the left of the screen.

Then click "Committees" at the left of the screen

Go down to find Public Health Committee and if it says "Scheduled" on the right of it, click on the second icon "View Committee Hearings"

Then, click on "View Legislation" on right.

When bills appear, find SB 3076 and click on the second icon "Create Witness Slip"

Then complete the witness form.    Make sure to check "opponent"  under POSITION  and "record of appearance only"  under TESTIMONY , then click "Create (Slip)"

If hundreds of people throughout the State do this, it would be a powerful message against SB 3076 and the members of the committee will take notice.

NBC Warns: Midterm Election 'Holds the Fate of the Rest of the Obama Presidency'

On Tuesday morning, only NBC’s Today marked the beginning of the 2014 midterm primary season and explained the dire situation for Democrats ahead on the November election. Co-host Savannah Guthrie proclaimed: “While President Obama’s dealing with the crisis in Ukraine, here at home, the future of his presidency could be at stake. The midterm primary season kicks off today, and this will affect who will control the levers of power in the coming years.”

In the report that followed, chief White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd warned: “…it sets the stage for what’s going to be an epic national battle in these midterms between the two parties for control of the Senate, which in turn, holds the fate of the rest of the Obama presidency.”

Neither ABC’s Good Morning America nor CBS This Morning provided any midterm election coverage on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Todd described the uphill battle for Democrats:

“Democrats are playing defense, polls show the party is vulnerable in as many as a dozen seats in the Senate. Republicans only need to win six of them for control. And the GOP play book, it’s the same all over the country, make the election about President Obama and his health care law….Many Democrats, particularly in the decisive red state Senate races, are running scared.”

Todd highlighted Democratic candidates distancing themselves from Obama:

“These midterm elections are going to end up being about one person who isn’t on any ballot this year, President Obama, who is desperately trying to turn the campaign away from being about him….In Kentucky, Allison Lundergan Grimes avoids health care and says she doesn’t need President Obama. Instead, she and other endangered Democrats are enlisting the help of another Democratic president.”

A sound bite played of Bill Clinton campaigning for Grimes.

Trying to find a silver lining in the bad news, Todd turned to Texas and declared: “Democrats hope Wendy Davis’ meteoric rise to national prominence translates into an upset over Republican Greg Abbott in the governor’s race.”

The latest Real Clear Politics average of polls has Abbott beating Davis by over eleven points.

Editor’s note. This appeared at newsbusters.org.

Source: National Right to Life

By Kyle Drennen

The truth is always the best defense against pro-abortion assaults on Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Rai Rojas

A few weeks ago a friend asked me to appear on NPR to discuss Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs). She noted that the conversation would be about CPCs in general but more specifically about the anti-CPC law in New York City.

I agreed immediately, not just because CPCs serve such a life-saving link in the pro-life chain, but also because delivering diapers and formula on behalf of a CPC to new moms was one of the first things I did in the right to life movement. I know firsthand what great work these centers do.

It was also a timely discussion. Days before the taping of the program, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court’s decision that most of the anti-crisis pregnancy law passed by the NYC council against CPCs was unconstitutional. The NYC council had passed the law by a vote of 39 to 9 in March of 2011 in the hopes of shutting down CPCs across the city.

In the opening NPR segment we heard from a “field reporter” (a woman’s whose name I’ve forgotten or clearly blocked) who expounded on the “horrors” of the CPCs and how disingenuous they are. Then the pro-abortion guest spoke and stated how CPCs hurt women.

That’s at about the point I lost my mind. My response:

“Women don’t die at Crisis Pregnancy Centers. The most invasive procedure to take place there is a blood test and doctors with suspended licenses don’t go from room to room wielding unhygienic and unsterilized instruments perforating uterus and sucking out intestines. Would that Tonya Reeves or Maria Santiago or Jennifer Morbelli or Karnamaya Mongar had gone to a Crisis Pregnancy Center instead of Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics they’d be alive today.”

There was a pause as I composed myself and the producer stopped shaking his head–yet they still followed up with, “but wearing lab coats is misleading.” I responded by letting them know that the women who work behind the Estée Lauder counter at Macy’s wear lab coats and no one is mistaking them for plastic surgeons.

The rest of the show was spent discussing the number of abortions Latina women have. I commented about how high and disparate the ratio of abortions for women of color is and reminded them that the most dangerous place for a Latino in the United States is in her mother’s womb.

Needless to say by the time I took off my headphones and stepped away from the mic, the folks at the other end were not the least bit amused. I had also said that the biggest issue the abortion industry takes with CPCs has little to do with women’s health – it has to do with their bottom line. It really is all about money for them.

One of the authors of the anti-CPC bill and rabid pro-abortion advocate Christine C. Quinn, formerly the Speaker of the New York City Council, said, “Women need to know, they have a right to know, whether they are consulting with a licensed medical provider.”

Really Christine? Remember Karnamaya Mongar? She was administered lethal doses of anesthesia by a woman with an 8th grade education at Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” abortion clinic. Gosnell was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in Mrs. Mongar’s death.

Maria Santiago died because no one at the abortion clinic where she had been butchered knew or had been trained on how to perform CPR. Planned Parenthood has been ordered to pay Tonya Reaves’s family $2 million because the “highly trained staff” at one of their Chicago clinics didn’t have the wherewithal to call paramedics as Ms. Reaves bled to death.

If they really cared about women, the folks on the NYC Council would train that laser-like focus they have on the very real horrors that take place in shoddy and dirty abortion mills at times run by people with suspended medical licenses.

But they won’t (to their great shame). There’s no money to be made in providing women alternatives to abortion and as a result, in NYC – and the rest of the nation – the single most dangerous place for a Latina continues to be in her mother’s womb.

By Rai Rojas, NRL News

"THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT AND HEALTH CARE ACCESS IN THE UNITED STATES"

National Right to Life Releases New Report Examining the Effect of the Affordable Care Act in the United States

WASHINGTON – With a March 31, 2014, deadline impending for open enrollment in the insurance exchanges established by “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (also known as Obamacare), the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee today issued a new report, “The Affordable Care Act and Health Care Access in the United States.”

The report analyzes four fundamental policy areas of Obamacare and concludes that they will drastically limit access to life-saving medical treatment under the law. These four areas include: the “excess benefit” tax coming into effect in 2018, the current exclusion of adequate health Insurance plans from the exchanges, present limits on senior citizens’ ability to use their own money for health insurance, and federal limits on the care doctors give their patients to be implemented as soon as 2016.

“For pro-life Americans concerned about the impact on innocent human life—both born and unborn—the policies of Obamacare couldn’t be worse,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “Americans are just as concerned with the law’s impact on our ability to access life-saving medical treatment for ourselves, our family members, and our loved ones as with Obamacare’s funding of abortions. Obamacare is bad medicine for America.”

Since Obamacarewas first debated in Congress, National Right to Life’s Powell Center for Medical Ethics has argued that key provisions of Obamacare would limit what Americans could spend—out of their own funds—to access life-saving medical treatment. As the Center’s new report concludes, Americans will see a significant shift in how they are able to access health care, and just what types of treatment they will be able to obtain.

As documented by media reports and the language of the law itself, Obamacare will limit access to life-saving treatment in four different ways:

1. Obamacare imposes a 40% excise tax on employer-paid health insurance premiums above a governmentally imposed limit that does not keep up with medical inflation. Consequently, insurance companies will be forced to impose increasingly severe restraints on policy-holders’ access to medical diagnosis and treatment—limits that will make it harder to get often-expensive treatments essential to combating life-threatening illnesses.

2. Under Obamacare, consumers using the exchanges may only choose plans offered by insurers who do not allow their customers to spend what government bureaucrats deem an “excessive or unjustified” amount for their health insurance – regardless of whether the insurers offer such plans inside or outside of the exchanges established by the law.

3. Most senior citizens know that the law will significantly cut government funding for Medicare, but they may not be aware of the law’s provision allowing Washington bureaucrats to prevent them from making up the Medicare shortfall with their own funds by limiting their right to spend their own money to obtain insurance less likely to limit treatments that could save their lives.

4. The “Independent Payment Advisory Board” is directed to recommend measures to limit spending on health care to a growth rate below medical inflation – not just for Medicare, but also for all private, nongovernmental health care spending. The federal Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is then authorized to implement these measures by placing limits on the treatments providers may give their patients by requiring them to abide by so-called “quality and efficiency standards” imposed by HHS.

“Obamacare authorizes Washington bureaucrats to create one uniform, national standard of care that is designed to limit what private citizens are allowed to spend to save their own lives,”stated Burke Balch, J.D., director of the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics. “We are convinced most Americans do not believe that the government should limit the right of Americans to use their own money for health care necessary to save their lives. Yet, that is exactly what Obamacare does. ”

The report is available from the National Right to Life Communications Department here:www.nrlc.org/communications/healthcarereport.

Source: National Right to Life

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always..." The story behind Robert Munsch's best-selling children's story

“Only he who suffers

can be the guide and healer
of the suffering.”  –  Thomas Mann

My six-year-old grandson loves to read almost as much as he loves being read to. So much so that if during the course of the day he commits a slight transgression the sure-fire way to get him back on track is to threaten to read him one less story later that night. It works every time.

A few years ago he asked me to come sit in the rocking chair in his room as his mom read to him before prayers and sleep, and of course I obliged. I’ll admit that I was only halfway paying attention when my daughter began reading Robert Munsch’s “Love You Forever.”

The book starts off with a young mom rocking her baby and singing a song to him as he falls asleep.

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be.”

For the rest of his life, no matter his age, she always manages to find him in bed and—well–rock him to sleep.

I’ll also admit that I thought it was a little creepy; I mean at one point she’s climbing stairs to get into her adult child’s room to take him out of his bed to… rock him to sleep.

But the mom’s self-less devotion clearly resonated with my daughter, reading and repeating this verse to her son, because about half way through the story I realized that she was crying and on the verge of a sob.

She got out of bed, handed me the book and asked me to please finish reading it for the little dude – and I did. After she composed herself, she nuzzled in next to the boy and read the last two books of the night.

Now, several years later my daughter is finally at a point where she can read “Love you forever” to him without blubbering. Well, she was.

Last night she sent me a text with a link to the author’s web site with the words – “This is so horribly sad” written underneath.

And it was.

“On his web site Mr. Munsch explains the story behind his best-selling book.

“I made that up after my wife and I had two babies born dead. The song was my song to my dead babies. For a long time I had it in my head and I couldn’t even sing it because every time I tried to sing it I cried. It was very strange having a song in my head that I couldn’t sing.

“For a long time it was just a song, but one day, while telling stories at a big theater at the University of Guelph, it occurred to me that I might be able to make a story around the song.

“Out popped ‘Love You Forever’ pretty much the way it is in the book.”

Oh my.

I immediately thought of my friends who’ve lost babies at birth, or who have miscarried, and how some of them have grappled with that great loss.

But I also reflected of the countless women I’ve met who have also lost their children no less tragically to the once prevailing culture of death.

Some of these women have healed, some are still painfully engulfed in the process of mourning – but all have expressed a forever love for their children.

The pro-life movement aches with them and for them. We fight, on a daily basis, to protect the lives of the innocent children, but also because we know the harm and the damage that is suffered by our post-aborted sisters and mothers and daughters. We know all too well the devastation that is felt by women once they realize that they are in fact the mothers of dead children.

It’s a pain I can’t and won’t imagine – but it’s a pain made manifest by the narrative behind Mr. Munsch’s book.

My grandson has outgrown the story, and his little brother won’t be ready to hear it for another couple of years. But now that she knows the back-story it may be even more difficult for my daughter to read.

That may be true for many of us.

By Rai Rojas, National Right to Life

PPFA's political arms already flexing muscle to adoring media

No pro-lifer doubts the political muscle of Planned Parenthood’s “political entities”– the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Votes. As a key component of the Democratic Party’s “left of center” coalition, they have access to gazillions of dollars and a voice—a large voice—at the table.

But besides the usual self-congratulation and soft-peddle treatment by the mainstream media, what else can we learn from Alexander Burns’ “Planned Parenthood reveals big 2014 game plan,” which ran in a week ago in POLITICO?

For starters, they take credit for—and are given credit by Burns for—the election of pro-abortion Terry McAuliffe over pro-life Ken Cuccinelli in last November’s Virginia gubernatorial election. Really? McAuliffe prevailed for a number of reasons which we wrote about here.

Suffice it to say that Democrat McAuliffe won by 56,000 votes out of more than 2 million votes cast, although Republican Cuccinelli was vastly outspent, hindered by a bevy of polls which consistently placed him far behind (thus discouraging contributions and supporters) and hampered by the presence of a third party candidate, and was the personal punching bag of newspapers such as the Washington Post.

Had Cuccinelli carried the day, a lot of the conventional wisdom that still remains would not have dissipated (that will never be permitted by the legion of PPFA allies in the media) but would have diminished.

Part—a large part—of that received wisdom is the power of the “War on Women” mantra. Let’s be clear: when not challenged by the Republican candidate or when bungled by self-same, it can dramatically hurt him or her.

NRLC Executive Director David N. O’Steen, Ph.D., addressed the cost of allowing pro-abortion Democrats to frame the issue. In November 2012, he wrote

“A determined, one-sided media together with a sequence of most unfortunate statements by candidates created a ‘perfect storm’ that played into and greatly augmented the pro-abortion narrative in this election. This effectively neutralized the usual pro-life advantage.

“The pro-life movement and pro-life candidates cannot ever let this happen again. We must see that the issue before the public is how and why abortion is actually used in this country, and, of course, the baby who dies. If this is done, then with a majority opposed to abortion on demand pro-life political victories will once again be the norm.”

Note, as we posted over the next few months, much of the advantage enjoyed by the pro-life candidate—neutralized in 2012—has returned.

The flipside is that this “War on Women” drivel is a backhanded admission of how chancy it is for pro-abortionists to ever allow the conversation to move to abortion. That is why they pounce on any comment, even those which are entirely innocuous, which they morph into a bogus example of the candidate’s supposed “misogynistic” views.

The final two paragraphs in Burn’s account is the core of the story and no doubt will be used by PPFA’s political arms to raise even more money:

“At least for the time being, Democrats remain confident that they have the upper hand on any issue that can be placed in the broad category of ‘women’s health’ — and that Planned Parenthood’s investment in the 2014 campaign will be a clear net positive for the party.

“Tom Lopach, chief of staff to Montana Sen. Jon Tester and an adviser to the Democrat’s 2012 reelection campaign, said Planned Parenthood had been a ubiquitous presence in that race, ‘knocking on doors in their pink shirts. They were running their own program, but their volunteers were also active, showing up and making calls for us,’ Lopach said. ‘I think people’s minds often go immediately to abortion services, but in reality Planned Parenthood talks about so much more.’”

This tells us the heart of the strategy: subsume everything that isn’t nailed down under “women’s health,” eviscerate any Republican candidate who doesn’t agree with every component, and make sure, above all else, to send the message that Planned Parenthood is about “so much more” than abortion.

The job of those running against candidates supported by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Votes is to remind them that the issue is not “family planning,” not “women’s health,” but abortion.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News