NEWS SHORTS FOR FRIDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
"Aggressive negotiations are under way" over funding for health insurance coverage of abortion services in the various health reform proposals in Congress, Americans United for Life President and CEO Charmaine Yoest writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. Yoest claims that although Democratic leaders have said they want to "maintain the 'status quo'" on abortion coverage, the "reality" is that "maintaining what we have now isn't even on the table."
According to Yoest, to maintain the status quo, "a health care bill would have to explicitly prevent federal dollars from being used for elective abortions," but such provisions "were killed by all five committees that have handled health care reform bills this year." The "compromise in the works" on abortion coverage is a provision authored by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) that was included in the House Energy and Commerce Committee's health reform bill, she says. Yoest argues that the Capps amendment is "being sold on the false premise that it would maintain the status quo" because "otherwise the American people would not go along with it." Click here for the full article.
Ireland completed its ratification of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, intensifying the pressure on the Czech Republic to overcome its objections and become the final member state to pass the treaty. Irish President Mary McAleese announced she had signed a special legal instrument following a Yes vote in this month's referendum. A statement from the president's office said she had "signed the Twenty-Eighth Amendment of the Constitution (Treaty of Lisbon) Bill 2009". Click here for the full article.
Last month the United States attended the UN Human Rights Council as a member for the first time, and not a moment too soon for girls in India. Though female infanticide and gender-selective abortion have been on the radar of human rights groups for decades, the situation is worsening in most areas of India, says the United Nations Population Fund. As the number of women seeking abortions worldwide has declined dramatically in the past decade, according to a new report. This is not the case in India, where the demographic imbalance of gender in India has reached epidemic proportions – due in large part to abortions. Click here for the full article.
The state's first facility to collect stem cell-rich umbilical cord blood from hospitals in Arizona is nearing completion in Gilbert. The Celebration Stem Cell Centre, under construction adjacent to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center at Val Vista Drive and Loop 202, will serve as a cord blood donation bank and research facility that will offer genetic counseling, officials say. The center will also store cord blood for paying clients who want to preserve it for later use. Click here for the full article.
A fight erupted over a $50,000 grant to Planned Parenthood for teen sex education at the Franklin County Board of Commissioners meeting yesterday. It's likely the first skirmish in a larger battle, previously aimed at state and federal lawmakers. "Our board wants us to be more engaged at the local level of government, more of a thermostat and less of a thermometer," said Michael Gonidakis, executive director of Ohio Right to Life. "My daughter is not yet 3, but I certainly don't want her learning from the nation's largest provider of abortion about how to use condoms at age 12. It shocks the conscience." Click here for the full article.
The Swiss government is linking a woman’s death to popular birth control product Yaz made by Bayer Pharmaceuticals. The woman died of a pulmonary embolism in June, just 10 months after starting the hormonal contraceptive. Last month American Life League reported that Patti Kelly, 28, of Austin, Texas was diagnosed in August with multiple blood clots in both lungs. Her doctor told her that if she hadn’t come into the emergency room when she did, she “could have died instantly.” Her doctor attributed the blood clots to her use of hormonal contraceptives. Click here for the full article.
In a development that reopens the whole controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood's deceptive arrival in Aurora in 2007, it has recently been disclosed that Planned Parenthood is planning an expansion in that city. They are seeking approval from the City of Aurora to boost their parking by 27 spaces, an increase of nearly 40 percent.
On October 15, the Planning and Development Committee will vote on Planned Parenthood's request for additional parking. Pro-life advocates plan to attend the meeting and urge the committee to deny Planned Parenthood's request.
Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League asked, "Why would Planned Parenthood need additional parking? We've got people out there all the time, so we know they haven't been overflowing their existing parking lot."
According to documents obtained by Scheidler through Freedom of Information Act requests, Planned Parenthood cites "security" as the reason for seeking more parking spaces. In the "Explanation of Project Needs" submitted by Tim Dutton of McAdam Landscape Inc., who is managing the project for Planned Parenthood, "Our staff and patients are being constantly harassed by the protestors." Dutton even goes so far as to say it's "only a matter of time" before Aurora sees an act of violence like the killing of abortionist George Tiller in Kansas.
"Sadly, the City of Aurora has accepted this explanation and scare tactics at face value. At no point has any city staff member, appointee or elected official ever questioned Planned Parenthood's allegations," said Scheidler. "But the truth is that the pro-life presence at Planned Parenthood's Aurora facility has been a model peacefulness and cooperation with law enforcement."
Scheidler believes the real reason Planned Parenthood wants more parking is a shortage of 26 spaces alleged in a zoning case against the organization going before a state judge later this month. Scheidler also pointed out that research by Pro-Life Action League attorneys has found that Planned Parenthood's existing parking violates Aurora's zoning ordinance as follows:
1. While the zoning ordinance requires 10-foot-wide parking spaces, Planned Parenthood's spaces are only 9 feet wide.
2. While the zoning ordinance requires a 35 foot setback for parking spaces, Planned Parenthood has only 30.
"Once again, Planned Parenthood is trying to demonize their pro-life opponents to avoid scrutiny of their nefarious business dealings," Scheidler said. "They came into Aurora under a cloud of deception, and now they're trying to paper over their misdeeds by pretending that they're threatened by our peaceful presence there."
"The City of Aurora should deny Planned Parenthood any further opportunity to expand in this community where they are already unwelcome," Scheidler concluded.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but for more than fifty years Lennart Nilsson has taken photographs that the pro-life movement has found priceless: the earliest and most compelling visual images that give intimate detail and clarity to the humanity of unborn children in the womb.
The Swedish photographer is eighty-seven years old, and was the first to open up the secret world of the unborn - from conception up to birth - by way of macro-lenses and endoscopes (tiny instruments - including camera lens and case - that measure less than eight-tenths of a millimeter in diameter).
Nilsson's photographic explorations of the unborn child's life in the womb were revealed to the world first in 1965 as the cover-story for the April 30, 1965 edition of LIFE magazine, entitled "The Drama of Life before Birth." But his photographs made their chief debut in that same year in a book called, "A Child is Born."
The stunning images published in 1965 have now been remastered with the help of the latest photographic technology and "A Child is Born" has been republished in a fifth and final edition. Nilsson says this final edition of his book is meant for the reader of the 21st century to enjoy, so that they might appreciate the mystery of a human being's beginnings. Nilsson has cut away most of the scientific text of previous versions, and largely lets the photos speak for themselves.
In a question-and-answer session with fellow Swedish photographer Hasse Persson, Nilsson remarked that although he has not photographed God directly through his microscopic cameras, "I've seen what He does."
The photographs taken by Nilsson are credited with benefitting science in myriad ways, including helping pave the way to 4-D ultrasound technology; but they have also been of invaluable assistance to the pro-life movement, helping to make its case for the humanity of the unborn.
"Images such as those created by Lennart Nilsson absolutely reaffirm the humanity of unborn persons, which is why they are so unpopular with pro-abortion forces," Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, President of Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews.com. "It is worthwhile to note that it is pro-lifers who call attention to the latest scientific and technological advances in fetal development research, not pro-abortionists, who seek to deny the obvious humanity of the unborn."
Nilsson himself withholds his opinion on abortion, saying that individuals must come to their own opinion. But service to truth also means service to life, and for that, Euteneuer told LSN, the pro-life movement is grateful for the contributions made by scientists and photographers like Nilsson.
"The facts are themselves on the side of life," said Euteneuer. "In utero photos, 3-D ultrasounds, more accurate knowledge of the stages of fetal development - all these glimpses of the truth just demolish the view that the unborn child is just tissue."
Nilsson's photographs have undeniably helped those on the front lines of the pro-life movement. These images have figured prominently on pro-life billboards and signs that say "Choose Life!" They are especially critical for those who reach out to teenage girls and women in front of abortion clinics and give them the chance to think of their baby as a real human person - not an abstract thing or ball of tissue.
Chris Slattery, the director of Expectant Mother Care (EMC) FrontLine Pregnancy Centers in New York City, the "abortion capital of America," says photos that depict the humanity of the unborn child in the womb have been "invaluable" in changing hearts and minds on abortion and "bringing to life the humanity of the unborn."
Slattery told LSN that EMC volunteers work with pregnant women in need of help and offer counseling outside abortion facilities. The photographs of the unborn child really help get the message across, he said.
Images of the unborn have advanced rapidly since Nilsson took his first photographs of life in the womb. Although Nilsson's endoscope allowed him to take intra-uterine photographs of a developing child, constraints on the technology in 1965 meant that in the early embryonic stages he had to photograph the unborn who had miscarried due to extra-uterine or ectopic pregnancies.
Now, Slattery says the pro-life arsenal has rapidly increased through images from 3D/4D ultrasound technology, which gives images of the baby in three dimensions and allows the mother to see real-time movement of her baby in the womb. These capture the facial expressions of the unborn, revealing personality.
"Photographs are a stock in trade tool," said Slattery. "We have used these successfully on the streets and in crisis pregnancy centers for decades."
Slattery said that he was looking forward to "A Child Is Born" making its way to the United States in the fifth version. "I'm always looking for new tools," he said.
The fifth edition of "A Child Is Born" made its European debut in autumn, and an English language version is published in the United Kingdom. LSN sent a message to the book's publisher about the book's debut in the United States and Canada, but did not receive a reply by publication time.
"There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a 'thump, thump' in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes." So writes abortionist Lisa Harris in a disturbing article relating her experiences as an abortionist, particularly her anguished and "brutally visceral" experience of dismembering an 18 week gestation unborn child, while 18 weeks pregnant herself.
In the article, entitled "Second Trimester Abortion Provision: Breaking the Silence and Changing the Discourse," Harris, an abortionist and assistant professor at the University of Michigan, explains the ethical position that she says helps her and other abortionists continue practicing despite the moral and psychological hurdles involved in what she describes as an undoubtedly "violent" procedure.
"Abortion is different from other surgical procedures," Harris writes in her candid article. "Even when the fetus has no legal status, its moral status is reasonably the subject of much disagreement. It is disingenuous to argue that removing a fetus from a uterus is no different from removing a fibroid."
Harris says that there is a need to "cross borders and boundaries (including seemingly inflexible ones like 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life')" in order to "reflect seriously on the question of how providers determine their limit for abortion," and warned that the issues surrounding the question "may frankly be too dangerous for pro-choice movements to acknowledge."
Harris then describes how she once performed an abortion on a woman whose fetus was at 18 weeks gestation. Ironically, Harris herself was pregnant at the time, and her baby was also at 18 weeks gestation.
Consequently, she explains how she was "more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts when I was done, since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus."
"I went about doing the procedure as usual," she writes. "I used electrical suction to remove the amniotic fluid, picked up my forceps and began to remove the fetus in parts, as I always did. I felt lucky that this one was already in the breech position - it would make grasping small parts (legs and arms) a little easier."
With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick - a fluttery "thump, thump" in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a "thump, thump" in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes - without me - meaning my conscious brain - even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling - a brutally visceral response - heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life. Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.
Harris concludes that the "visually and viscerally different" component of a second-trimester abortion, as opposed to a first-trimester one, leads to questions such as: "What kind of dissociative process inside us allows us to do this routinely? What normal person does this kind of work?"
To answer the questions, Harris notes that the "violence" of abortion must be acknowledged, and relates a "bizarre" experience she once had of observing a premature baby struggling to survive immediately after dismembering an unborn child the same age:
The last patient I saw one day was 23 weeks pregnant. I performed an uncomplicated D&E procedure. Dutifully, I went through the task of reassembling the fetal parts in the metal tray. It is an odd ritual that abortion providers perform - required as a clinical safety measure to ensure that nothing is left behind in the uterus to cause a complication - but it also permits us in an odd way to pay respect to the fetus (feelings of awe are not uncommon when looking at miniature fingers and fingernails, heart, intestines, kidneys, adrenal glands), even as we simultaneously have complete disregard for it. Then I rushed upstairs to take overnight call on labour and delivery. The first patient that came in was prematurely delivering at 23-24 weeks. As her exact gestational age was in question, the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) team resuscitated the premature newborn and brought it to the NICU. Later, along with the distraught parents, I watched the neonate on the ventilator. I thought to myself how bizarre it was that I could have legally dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it were inside its mother's uterus - but that the same kind of violence against it now would be illegal, and unspeakable.
Harris then goes on to explain that she rationalizes the bizarreness of the situation by the "location" of the baby, whether it is "inside or outside of the woman's body," and "most importantly, her [the mother's] hopes and wishes for that fetus/baby." However, she says, "this knowledge does not change the reality that there is always violence involved in a second trimester abortion, which becomes acutely apparent at certain moments, like this one. I must add, however, that I consider declining a woman's request for abortion also to be an act of unspeakable violence."
Harris points out that the abortion lobby's discomfort with "the violence and, frankly, the gruesomeness of abortion" has led to a pro-abortion discourse that she says "contradicts an enormous part of" the abortionist's experience. While pro-abortion activists may claim abortions "don't really look like" the graphic images often displayed by pro-life protesters, Harris notes, "to a doctor and clinic team involved in second trimester abortion, they very well may."
"Of course, acknowledging the violence of abortion risks admitting that the stereotypes that anti-abortion forces hold of us are true - that we are butchers, etc.," she adds.
Harris also touches upon the psychological burdens second trimester abortion care lays upon its providers, including "serious emotional reactions that produced physiological symptoms, sleep disturbances (including disturbing dreams), effects on interpersonal relationships and moral anguish."
Harris tackles the "ethical and moral positions that allow for grey areas" in abortion provision by advocating the "gradualist perspective" - stating that "the respect owed to a fetus increases as pregnancy advances and the fetus becomes more like a born person." This, she says, serves to "close the gap between pro-choice rhetoric and the reality of doing a second trimester abortion," and "allows us to simultaneously acknowledge the value of early human life and be woman-centred, an ideal position for a second trimester provider."
While the "gradualist" approach raises the spectre of later abortions being "more serious" than early abortions, says Harris, the concern is allayed by the fact that "women have all sorts of compelling and legitimate reasons for choosing abortion" - particularly, she says, in second trimester abortions.
Still, for Harris, there remains the problem of abortionists "caught between pro-choice discourse that, while it reflects our values, does not accurately reflect the full extent of our experience of abortion and in fact contradicts an enormous part of it, and the anti-abortion discourse and imagery that may actually be more closely aligned to our experience but is based in values we do not share."
Harris conjectures that the needs of abortionists in this regard are not met because "frank talk like this is threatening to abortion rights." "While some of us involved in teaching abortion routinely speak to our trainees about the aspects of care I've described, we don't make a habit of speaking about it publicly. Essays like this bring the inevitable risk that comments will be misinterpreted, taken out of context and used as evidence for further abortion practice restrictions," she writes.
"We might conclude at this point that a provider who feels that abortion is violent is simply ambivalent, conflicted, is not really committed to women's abortion rights, and just shouldn't be doing this work," Harris writes. "'Pro-life' supporters may argue that the kind of stories and sentiments I've relayed spell the end of abortion - that honest speech acts regarding the reality of abortion will weaken the pro-choice movement to the point where it cannot sustain itself any longer.
However, she contests the point, arguing that, rather than weakening the argument for abortion, facing abortion with "honesty" can "be the basis for a stronger movement - one that makes it easier for providers and the teams they work with to do all abortions, especially second trimester abortions."
Does President Obama support or oppose an amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) that would explicitly prohibit federal funding of abortion in the health-care bill now being considered in Congress? As of now, the White House isn't saying.
On Wednesday, the White House did not respond to CNSNews.com's direct written question on the matter. At Tuesday's White House press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to specifically address Stupak's amendment. Click here for the video.
The amendment says: "No funds authorized under this Act (or an amendment by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except" in the cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.
The amendment is co-sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts (R.-Pa.), and mirrors the language of the Hyde amendment, which is included in each year's Health and Human Services appropriation bill to prohibit abortion funding in programs funded by that particular appropriations bill in that particular year. Stupak's amendment would permanently bar abortion funding in the new programs that would be created by the health-care bill. These new programs will not be funded through the annual HHS appropriation that carries the Hyde amendment.
Stupak told CNSNews.com in a statement last week that he and other pro-life Democrats would try to block the health care bill itself if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not allow a vote on his amendment in the full House when the health care bill comes up for consideration.
"There are many of us Democrats in the House who are philosophically, legally, and morally opposed to public funding for abortions," Stupak told CNSNews.com in a statement last Friday.
"We want the chance to offer our amendment, the Hyde Amendment, on the floor of the House. If our amendment is not made in order we will try to shut down the rule, preventing the health care bill from coming to the floor for a vote," Stupak stated. "If the speaker believes that abortion funding is not in the bill then she should let me have my amendment, because if anything it would just be redundant."
At Tuesday's press briefing, CNSNews.com asked Gibbs about Stupak's plan to stop the health care bill if his amendment does not get a vote in the full House. In responding, Gibbs did not address Stupak's amendment itself but pointed to answers he gave at press briefings last Wednesday and Friday.
CNSNews.com asked Gibbs on Tuesday: "Robert, just want to revisit an issue from last week. Congressman Bart Stupak has talked about possibly holding up the bill, unless there's Hyde-like language--
Gibbs: "I know you asked this question twice last week, so we're on like--"
CNSNews.com: "This is a different question, this is a different question."
Gibbs: "I'm sure it is."
CNSNews.com: "If Hyde-like language is already in the bill, would there be any reason for Democrats not to support this language if it's"--
Gibbs: "I have not seen what Congressman Stupak said most recently. I would refer you to the answers I gave you on this question just twice last week."
Gibbs was referring to questions CNSNews.com had asked him last Wednesday and Friday about two letters that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had sent to Congress in which the bishops stated and then restated that no current version of the health care bill prohibits abortion funding and that without such a prohibition the bishops would oppose the bill.
Gibbs had contradicted the bishops, saying that the current law barring federal funding of abortion (the Hyde amendment that is attached to each year's Health and Human Services appropriation) would also apply to the health-care bill and that the bishops had misinterpreted the law.
Yesterday, Gibbs did not respond to a written question from CNSNews.com asking: "Does the president support, does he oppose or does he not have a position on the Stupak amendment?"
Gibbs's argument that the Hyde amendment would prohibit abortion funding in the health care bill is rejected not only by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops but also by National Right to Life. Analyzing President Obama's claim that the health care bill does not fund abortion, the independent group FactCheck.org concluded: "Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans."
Stupak wants to attach the language of the Hyde Amendment to the health care bill itself so abortion funding explicitly prohibited under taxpayer-subsidized insurance plans. If the rule that would govern debate on the health care bill and stipulate which proposed amendments are eligible for votes on the House floor is defeated by a vote of the House, the health care bill itself would die.
Stupak told Fox News last month he believed he had enough votes lined up to defeat the rule if Speaker Pelosi does not agree to allow a vote on an amendment to explicitly bar abortion funding through the bill.
Africa has the highest number of pre-term births, but surprisingly, North America, with its sophisticated neonatal intensive care units, is a close second. The statistics are alarming enough that experts are looking into the problem of premature births around the world.
Dr. Gene Rudd with the Christian Medical & Dental Associations says the culture of abortion-on-demand may be a cause because some scientific information exists showing an abortion can cause premature births in later pregnancies.
"There'll be lots of people wanting to deny that data," Rudd says, "but right now the data is concerning enough that women ought to be counseled that abortion does predispose them, or at least appears to be predisposing them, to prematurity with subsequent pregnancies."
premature baby adult handDr. Rudd says prematurity exists though in cultures, like Africa, where abortion is not common but it is caused by compounding variables, like poor health, poor nutrition, and poor prenatal care.
"It certainly increases with women who have their own health complications," he says, "and there are certain racial groups that have higher incidences of premature birth."
Dr. Rudd concludes that what can be done to help these women and babies should be done. Premature babies, he points out, can have lifelong problems, including cerebral palsy, blindness, and learning disabilities.
NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.) Americans Favor Embryo Adoption
A majority of Americans from various backgrounds told Nightlight Christian Adoption they prefer human-embryo adoption over donating them for destructive stem-cell research.
Ron Stoddart, executive director of Nightlight, said the trend that appeared in the survey has positive implications for the life issue.
“It is because we have been successful at making people aware that the embryos are there,” he said, “and people have been thinking more about this dilemma and what to do about it.” Click here for the full article.
Cass Sunstein, who was recently confirmed to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has argued for stronger efforts to enlarge the pool of organ donors, including policies that would require citizens to consent to organ donation in order to obtain driver's licenses. Sunstein argued that a policy of "routine removal"-- in which vital organs are taken from terminally ill patients even without their consent-- could be defended legally and morally. Click here for the full article.
A judge in Utah has concluded a bizarre legal case by finding that a 17-year-old girl did not violate state law by hiring a man to beat her, hoping that it would prompt a miscarriage. The judge concluded that while the incident was "shocking and crude," the girl was not subject to prosecution because an effort to end a pregnancy was covered by the state's law allowing abortion. Click here for the full article.
A new report by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute-- named after a president of Planned Parenthood-- has found that the worldwide number of abortions fell from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003, a decline of 8.6%.
The report found that over one in five of the world’s abortions-- 8.8 million in 2003-- occur in China. Observing that “China imposed an urban population policy of one child per family in the 1980s,” the Guttmacher Institute did not condemn the one-child policy or reports of forced abortions, but instead praised the “high degree of safety” with which abortions are conducted in the Communist nation. Click here for the full article.
In recognition of October as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Planned Parenthood of Delaware (PPDE) and the Philadelphia Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® are partnering together to offer free breast exams at all PPDE health centers on October 20, 2009. Women who do not have health insurance are more likely to postpone care and delay or forgo important preventive care such as cancer screenings, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report. And women below the poverty level are less likely than women with higher incomes to have had a mammogram within the past two years. Click here for the full article.
It was barely reported in the media, but a lawsuit was filed in federal court (Sherley et al. v. Sebelius et al.) on August 19 to reverse the guidelines put out by NIH that open federal funding to more human embryo destruction.
In further developments, a hearing was held Wednesday, October 14 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on a preliminary injunction to block implementation and federal funding under the NIH guidelines. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth listened to oral arguments, and will likely issue a decision by November 1 (in the meantime, NIH has indicated that it will not permit the expenditure of any funds for human embryonic stem cell research before that date.) Click here for the full article.
On the morning of 2 October 2009, one of us (Joan) joined an audience of mostly health professionals and listened as Dr. Diane Harper, the leading international developer of the HPV vaccines, gave a sales pitch for Gardasil. Gardasil, as you may know, is the new vaccine that is supposed to confer protection against four strains of the sexually transmitted Human Papillomavirus (HPV).
Dr. Harper came to the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination to prove to us the real benefits of Gardasil. Sadly, her own presentation left me (Joan) and others filled with doubts. By her own admission, Gardasil has the doctors surrounding me glaring at a poor promise of efficacy as a vaccine married to a high risk of life-threatening side effects. Gardasil, Dr. Harper explained, is promoted by Merck, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, as a “safe and effective” prevention measure against cervical cancer. The theory behind the vaccine is that, as HPV may cause cervical cancer, conferring a greater immunity of some strains of HPV might reduce the incidence of this form of cancer. In pursuit of this goal, tens of millions of American girls have been vaccinated to date.
As I sat scribbling down Merck’s claims, I wondered why such mass vaccination campaigns were necessary. After all, as Dr. Harper explained, 70% of HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment in one year. After two years, this rate climbs to 90%. Of the remaining 10% of HPV infections, only half coincide with the development of cervical cancer.
Dr. Harper further undercut the case for mass vaccination campaigns in the U.S. when she pointed out that “4 out of 5 women with cervical cancer are in developing countries.” (Harper serves as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) for HPV vaccination in the developing world.) Indeed, she surprised her audience by stating that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is so low that “if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US.”
If this is the case, I thought, then why vaccinate at all? From the murmurs of the doctors in the audience, it was apparent that the same thought had occurred to them.
In the U.S. the cervical cancer rate is 8 per 100,000 women.1 Moreover, it is one of the most treatable forms of cancer. The current death rate from cervical cancer is between 1.6 to 3.7 deaths per 100,000 cases of the disease.2 The American Cancer Society (ACS) notes that “between 1955 and 1992, the cervical cancer death rate declined by 74%” and adds that “the death rate from cervical cancer continues to decline by nearly 4% each year.”3
At this point, I began to wriggle around in my seat, uncomfortably wondering, is the vaccine really effective? Using data from trials funded by Merck, Dr. Harper cheerfully continued to demolish the case for the vaccine that she was ostensibly there to promote. She informed us that “with the use of Gardasil, there will be no decrease in cervical cancer until at least 70% of the population is vaccinated, and in that case, the decrease will be very minimal. The highest amount of minimal decrease will appear in 60 years.”
It is hard to imagine a less compelling case for Gardasil. First of all, it is highly unlikely that 70% or more of the female population will continue to get routine Gardasil shots and boosters, along with annual PAP smears. And even if it did, according to Dr. Harper, “after 60 years, the vaccination will [only] have prevented 70% of incidences” of cervical cancer.
But rates of death from cervical cancer are already declining. Let’s do the math. If the 4% annual decline in cervical cancer death continues, in 60 years there will have been a 91.4% decline in cervical cancer death just from current cancer monitoring and treatment. Comparing this rate of decline to Gardasil’s projected “very minimal” reduction in the rate of cervical cancer of only 70 % of incidences in 60 years, it is hard to resist the conclusion that Gardasil does almost nothing for the health of American women.
Despite these dismal projections, Gardasil continues to be widely and aggressively promoted among pre-teen girls. The CDC reports that, by 1 June 2009, over 26 million doses of Gardasil have been distributed in the U.S.4 With hopes of soon tapping the adolescent male demographic, Merck, the pharmaceutical manufacturer of the vaccine, and certain Merck-funded U.S. medical organizations are targeting girls between the ages of 9 and 13.5 As CBS news reports, “Gardasil, launched in 2006 for girls and young women, quickly became one of Merck's top-selling vaccines, thanks to aggressive marketing and attempts to get states to require girls to get the vaccine as a requirement for school attendance.”6
Just as I began, in my own mind, to question ethics of mass vaccinations of prepubescent girls, Dr. Harper dropped another bombshell. “There have been no efficacy trials in girls under 15 years,” she told us.
Merck did study a small group of girls under 16 who had been vaccinated, but did not follow them long enough to conclude sufficient presence of effective HPV antibodies.
If I wasn’t skeptical enough already, I really started scratching my head when Dr. Harper explained, “if you vaccinate a child, she won’t keep immunity in puberty and you do nothing to prevent cervical cancer.” But it turned out that she wasn’t arguing for postponing Gardasil vaccination until later puberty, as I first thought. Rather, Dr. Harper only emphasized to the doctors in the audience the need for Gardasil booster shots, because it is still unknown how long the vaccine immunity lasts. More booster shots mean more money for Merck, obviously.
I left Dr. Harper’s lecture convinced that Gardasil did little to stop cervical cancer, and determined to answer another question that she had largely ducked: Is this vaccine safe? Here’s what my research turned up. To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse effects include Guilliane Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths.7
Dr. Harper, who seems to specialize in dropping bombshells, dropped another in an interview with ABC News when she admitted that “The rate of serious adverse events is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer.”8 This being the case, one might want to take one’s chances with cancer, especially because the side effects of the vaccine are immediate, while the possibility of developing cancer is years in the future.
In the clinical studies alone, 23 girls died after receiving either Gardasil or the Aluminum control injection. 15 of the 13,686 girls who received Gardasil died, while 8 died among the 11,004 who received the Aluminum shot. There was only one death among the group that had a saline placebo. What this means is that 1 out of every 912 girls in the Gardasil clinical studies died. (9, see page 8.) The cervical cancer death rate is 1 out of every 40,000 women per year.10 The numbers of deaths and adverse effects are undoubtedly underestimates. Dr. Harper’s comments to ABC News concur with the National Vaccine Information Center’s claim that “though nearly 70 percent of all Gardasil reaction reports were filed by Merck, a whopping 89 percent of the reports Merck did file were so incomplete there was not enough information for health officials to do a proper follow-up and review.”11 On average, less than 10 percent—perhaps even less than 1 percent—of serious vaccine adverse events are ever reported, according to the American Journal of Public Health.12
Given the severity and frequency of Gardasil adverse reactions, I definitely wasn’t the only one in Dr. Harper’s audience who winced when she dismissed most Gardasil side effects as “easily just needle phobia.”
Due to the young age of the trial participants and the short duration of the studies, the effects of Gardasil on female fecundity have not been studied. I did discover, in my post-conference reading, that Polysorbate 80, an ingredient in the vaccine (13, see page 12), has been observed in a European clinical study to cause infertility in rats.14 Is this an additional concern? Time will tell.
I do not wish to give the impression that Dr. Harper presented, even inadvertently, a consistently negative view of her own vaccine. She did tout certain “real benefits,” chief among them that “the vaccine will reduce the number of follow-up tests after abnormal PAP smears,” and thereby reduce the “relationship tension,” “stress and anxiety” of abnormal or false HPV positive results.
To me, however, this seems a rather slim promise, especially when weighed against the deaths and side effects caused by the Gardasil campaign. Should millions of girls in the United States, many as young as 9, be put at risk, so that sexually active adults can have less “relationship tension” about false positive Hepatitis results? Is the current rate of death, sterility and serious immune dysfunction from Gardasil worth the potential that in 60 years a minimal amount of a cervical disease (that is already decreasing on its own) may perhaps be reduced?
But what I really wanted to know is why Merck is so eagerly marketing such a dangerous and ineffective vaccine? Aren’t there other ways they could make a profit? While Merck’s behavior is probably adequately explained by the profit motive, what about those in the Health and Human Services bureaucracy who apparently see Gardasil as medicine’s gift to women? What motivates them?
I (Steve) think that they see Gardasil as what one might call a “wedge” drug. For them, the success of this public vaccination campaign has less to do with stopping cervical cancer, than it does with opening the door to other vaccination campaigns for other sexually transmitted diseases, and perhaps even including pregnancy itself. For if they can overcome the objections of parents and religious organizations to vaccinating pre-pubescent—and not sexually active—girls against one form of STD, then it will make it easier for them to embark on similar programs in the future.
After all, the proponents of sexual liberation are determined not to let mere disease—or even death—stand in the way of their pleasures. They believe that there must be technological solutions to the diseases that have arisen from their relentless promotion of promiscuity. After all, the alternative is too horrible to contemplate: They might have to learn to control their appetites. And they might have to teach abstinence.
WLS-Ch. 7 morning news anchor Judy Hsu gave birth this morning to a baby boy as she and her husband rushed to the hospital on the inbound Eisenhower Expressway [in Chicago], the station reported.
"We were heading down the Eisenhower," Hsu said during the station's 11a. news broadcast. "At a pretty fast speed."
"I said, 'Do you need to pull over?' Judy said, 'I don't know!' " Tracy, her husband, said.
"I didn't know. I think I was in denial the whole time. I did not want to pull over on the side of the expressway. But the time came, and I knew the baby couldn't wait. I said, 'OK, I think we better pull over and call 911,' " Hsu said.
The couple's baby came into the world at about 3a near the Cicero Ave. exit. They named him Alexander James but - fittingly - his nickname will be "Ike."
As of this afternoon mother and baby were doing fine, according to the station.
Tracy helped his wife give birth in the front seat of the car. He said he remembered a news story about a woman who gave birth on the side of the road and her husband used his shoelaces to tie off the umbilical cord. Tracy tried that too and it worked.
Paramedics soon arrived and took them to the hospital.
"Can you believe it?" Hsu told the station. "It's so wild. It's stuff we read about in the news, and I never, ever thought would happen to me. It just went so fast. It was pretty incredible."
In a case echoing the tragic story of Britain's Sarah Capewell and son Jayden, a Mississippi mother says that her neonatologist refused to help her baby daughter survive because he believed she was too young, at 22 weeks 4 days gestation, to merit intervention.
Necie Franklin of Flowood, Mississippi, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that Dr. Kenny Robbins of River Oaks Hospital refused to treat daughter Jessa Mackenzie after she was born suddenly in May, because she was three days shy of 23 weeks gestation - at which point he would have considered treating her at the hospital's Level II neonatal intensive care unit.
Franklin said that Jessa gasped for breath twice while in her arms, but was told by nurses that it was "just a reaction" - leading her to believe the child had died. Only after Jessa had been taken away, says Franklin, did she learn that the child still had a heartbeat.
Franklin, who says she has lost a child to a premature birth before, said it "shocked" her when Robbins said he would not help Jessa breathe.
"I looked at him and said, so you're telling me you're not going to do anything for my daughter?" said Franklin. She says Robbins "simply flat out refused."
"He actually told me this - This is what stuck in my mind most of all for days afterwards - was that I would be torturing my child to do something, because she was so little," the mother recalled. "She weighed just over a pound - which there are children who weigh less than that, that actually make it."
"They took so long to bring her back to me that she had already passed away by the time they had brought her back to me," said Franklin. "I don't know how many times after she left my sight that she gasped for breath. And they didn't even put a respirator on her to make her a little more comfortable."
She says Jessa's heart beat for about an hour and a half before she died.
Lori Rushkin, Franklin's niece who was present during the ordeal, confirmed that Franklin and her family expressly pleaded for treatment for Jessa, to no avail.
"We all kept saying, 'Why not try? What's the harm in at least trying?'" Rushkin told LSN in a phone interview. "We said, 'Look: miracles happen every day, it's not up to you to determine when a child lives or dies, it's going to be in God's hands. If you try, and the child lives, then that's what she was meant to do.
"And that's when [Robbins] started talking about, 'Well, there's so many papers that have been written, and literature and books that you can go through, and see that a baby this young is not going to make it.'"
Rushkin said she and the other family members felt Robbins' attitude was "ridiculous."
"What was so bad about at least taking an hour out of his time and trying to do something for that baby?" she asked.
LSN's multiple attempts to reach Dr. Kenny Robbins for further information were not answered. However, Dr. Robbins did reply to Franklin's request for further information, saying that "resuscitation was not indicated" for Jessa. Only after 23 weeks would parents be allowed to choose whether to permit resuscitation, said Robbins, "because outcomes are very poor in this age range and even those who survive have a high risk of permanent complications."
Robbins said that the protocol used in Jessa's case was "a universally accepted one by neonatologists, it is in full compliance with Christian medical ethics," and that the literature he referenced was "produced by Catholic ethicists - and you can't get more strict and pro-life regarding the protection of the unborn and newly born than that."
However, Dr. Paul Byrne, M.D., the Director of Pediatrics and Neonatology at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Oregon, Ohio, said he disagrees.
"There is no specific gestational age at which a baby cannot survive outside the uterus," Byrne told LSN. While a shorter gestational age and lower birth rate increase risk of mortality, Byrne said he has known of infants as young as 18 weeks' gestation to survive.
The limiting factor that determines whether the doctor could intervene to help the baby, according to Byrne, is related to whether the baby's trachea is large enough to allow a 2.5 millimeter tube to be inserted to aid breathing.
Byrne said that Robbins' use of the term "potentially viable" was "not the correct approach."
"The baby is living," said Byrne. "We can protect and preserve the life of the infant person. A doctor ought not to impose or hasten death."
Franklin said she felt prompted to share her story after hearing that a similar tragedy befell British mom Sarah Capewell. Capewell told media last month that her son Jayden was refused intervention at 21 weeks 5 days gestation, despite crying and staying alive on his own for two hours. In that case, doctors cited guidelines offered by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics as their reason for refusing treatment.
"Just because they have literature stating that the statistics are that these children don't usually survive - that's not God in the mix," said Franklin. "Because he can do anything, and that's what we were trying to tell the doctor."
"It needs to be brought to light that people are doing this, that doctors are doing this, ... and nobody is standing up and telling them, 'You shouldn't do this, you shouldn't play God,'" she said.
River Oaks Hosptial did not return LSN's request for comment.
"Maybe 50 percent of the graphic images of abortion victims that you'll find online are probably my photography." So says Monica Migliorino Miller, associate professor of theology at Madonna University in Orchard Lake, Mich., in a recent front-page interview with The New York Times.
The interview has made waves in the pro-life world, due in large part to the fact that, along with the interview, the Times ran a selection of Miller's graphic abortion photos in the online version of the story, becoming one of the only mainstream newspapers in the world to do so.
The story, written by Times journalist Damien Cave, came about after Cave encountered Miller while covering the murder of pro-life activist James Pouillon, who used to protest abortion by holding signs depicting photos of aborted babies. "Like many others," wrote Cave in the article, "I often wondered about the source of these images. Who took the pictures? Where did the fetuses come from?"
The answer is Monica Miller.
In a statement to pro-life supporters, Miller called the Times story a "coup," saying that it "is sure to generate much debate."
"Perhaps for the first time in the history of the pro-life movement a nationally recognized paper has (at last!) deliberately printed photos of actual abortion victims," she said.
"We need to pray that hearts will be changed," said Miller. "Our goal is to show and tell the truth about the injustice of abortion. I hope this story helps awaken hearts and minds."
The story is sure to frustrate the efforts of pro-abortion activists, many of whom have sought for years to discredit the abortion photos used by many pro-lifers by simply claiming that they are fake. But the Times' story leaves little room for that conclusion.
"We felt it was very important to make a record of the reality of abortion," Miller told Cave in the interview, speaking of her motivation in beginning to take the controversial photos.
The process of photography is difficult, she explained. The aborted infants are difficult to handle, and the formaldehyde solution acrid. She says she rented expensive lenses so that she could get within millimeters of the aborted babies. The result is that her photographs show very small details, revealing the fingers and toes of babies whose entire frames are no bigger than a cell phone.
In addition to the precision of the actual photography, when taking the photos Miller precisely documents each baby she photographs by date, location, and gestational age.
The aborted babies she photographs are often illegally thrown out by abortion mills, explained Miller. In 1988 Miller and others found that a pathology lab in Northbrook, Illinois was being used as a dumping ground for about ten to twelve different abortion mills. Between February and September of 1988, they removed roughly 4000 aborted babies from where the abortion clinics had shipped them. Many of them were later buried in a funeral ceremony presided over by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago.
To find the aborted babies Miller and her companions search through biohazardous waste, where they find the remains of the fetuses among bloody surgical papers, gloves, and surgical instruments. They also have found the medical records of woman who have gone to the abortion mills, records improperly disposed of by the abortion facility itself.
"We photograph those babies because we needed to show their humanity," said Miller in July 2008. "It should shock us. It should completely outrage us that this is happening. These are human beings we're talking about, thrown out in the trash."
Miller's latest photos have focused less on the gore of abortion and more on the fine details and features even the youngest aborted children have. "I want to show there's beauty and humanity in the unborn child," she said. "There should be a sense of pity."
Miller was deeply involved in the pro-life movement before she began to take her now-famous pictures. She was among the individuals and organizations against whom pro-abortion groups brought a lawsuit in the 80s, in which the pro-abortion groups attempted to have pro-lifers prosecuted under federal racketeering laws. The case concluded at the US Supreme Court in with an 8-1 decision in favor of the pro-life coalition.
"This slide show includes images that are very graphic." -- From "Behind the Scenes: Picturing Fetal Remains," by Damien Cave, which appeared on the New York Times website last Saturday.
To say that I was stunned last weekend when the New York Times ran (by Establishment Media standards) an even-handed portrait of pro-life protestors would hardly do justice to my amazement. That the Times proceeded to carry a second story, a kind of hybrid photo essay, in its "Lens: Photography, Video and Visual Journalism" section found on the Times' web page, set my jaw to dropping.
The two came together when Cave, as part of his story on pro-life protestors, attended the memorial service for James Pouillon, a veteran pro-lifer who was shot and killed as he sat outside an abortion clinic in Owosso, Michigan. Cave tells us "Mr. Pouillon was holding an anti-abortion sign at the time, with a baby on one side and an abortion on the other."
He explains, "I often wondered about the source of these images. Who took the pictures? Where did the fetuses come from?" Cave then tells us, "At his memorial service, I met Monica Migliorino Miller, who told me she had a lot to share about the use of abortion imagery."
The history of her involvement, and her evolving views on how best these photos might be used, can be found on the Times's web page. Cave's fascinating interview with the woman whose photographs of aborted babies have appeared all over the country "since the mid-1990s," and the four photos of aborted babies can be found at http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/behind-19/?scp=2&sq=damien%20cave&st=cse.
What is amazing for pro-lifers, of course, is that the topic was discussed at all and, even more breath-taking, that the Times would have the gumption to show photos of aborted babies on its website.
We see a mid-1980s photo described by Mrs. Migliorino Miller as "Unborn baby, 5 months' gestation, aborted with saline abortion technique"; "Foot--broken at the ankle," a 14-16 week-old baby killed by suction abortion in 2008; "Hand of baby aborted 16 weeks gestation by suction method" in 2009; and "The feet of unborn baby 6 months, prostaglandin abortion method" from the mid 1980s.
Almost as riveting was the heated give-and-take in the comment section which followed. You expected what you read in the first few (which were indicative of many), people whose hatred for pro-lifers is almost clinical. They need to distance themselves from the horror of what they saw, assuming they had the courage to look, and, I suspect, from their own involvement, at least in some cases.
So, they string together the usuals--that pro-lifers only care about "fetuses"; we hate women; what about "unwanted children?"; most abortions are done in the first trimester when the unborn have "flippers" [!]; we couldn't care less about babies after they are born; and, in general, mind your own business.
But to find in the New York Times the eloquence--and the number--of the pro-life responses was startling.
They debunked each of these threadbare pro-abortion rationalizations. One of my favorites is, "An 8 week old fetus does not have flippers or a tail. It looks like a tiny human."
Perhaps most revealing is that the pro-life respondents refused to be pigeonholed. As one writer put it, "What does it matter liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, religious or secular?
These are human beings and what the abortionists do to these babies would not be allowed to happen to dogs."
Which helped put the e-mail from the self-described "classic, left-clinging liberal in all ways but the abortion issue" in context. Her eyes had been opened when, many years ago, she took a friend to a clinic to have an abortion.
"Although these photos are horrific they do speak a truth, a truth that so many pro-choice types refuse to admit," she wrote.
And then there was that most telling voice, the voice of sad experience. "I was once fooled into killing my child," wrote one woman. "It ate my heart out from within until I found help and healing. Now a part of the pro-life movement, and still a single woman, I have had the great privileged of adopting 2 children whom the pro-abortion movement would have preferred to see dead."
Finally there was the woman who wrote about her involvement many years ago in the pro-abortion movement which was, I gather, a reflection of her liberal views. "I haven't changed in my political principles and values, but there has certainly been one change: I am now against abortion, and now -- for the first time -- speaking out against the violence of dismembering our children."
She concluded with this remarkable statement: "Do not tell me that my own two babies expelled from my womb are something subhuman or sub-personal. It is I who failed the test of being 'human' or 'personal' when I aborted them…"
Please take a few minutes and click here. I would also encourage you to write the Times to thank the paper for its courage.
NEWS SHORTS FOR WEDNESDAY (Referral to Web sites not produced by The Illinois Federation for Right to LIfe is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
Increased contraceptive use has led to fewer abortions worldwide, but deaths from unsafe abortion remain a severe problem, killing 70,000 women a year, a research institute reported Tuesday in a major global survey.
More than half the deaths, about 38,000, are in sub-Saharan Africa, which was singled out as the region with by far the lowest rates of contraceptive use and the highest rates of unintended pregnancies.
The report, three years in the making, was compiled by the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights and is a leading source of data on abortion-related trends. Researchers examined data from individual countries and multinational organizations. Click here for the full article.
Health care talks slip back behind closed doors Wednesday as Senate leaders start trying to merge two very different bills into a new version that can get the 60 votes needed to guarantee its passage.
All eyes are on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has said he wants to complete the wedding quickly and get historic health care overhaul legislation onto the floor the week after next.
Both bills were written by Democrats, but that's not going to make it easier for Reid. They share a common goal, which is to provide all Americans with access to affordable health insurance, but they differ on how to accomplish it. Click here for the full article.
Bishop Emeritus Michael Saltarelli of the Diocese of Wilmington died early on Thursday. A diocesan spokesman said that the 77-year-old Saltarelli died from bone cancer.
Bishop Saltarelli had stood against pro-abortion politicians during his 12 years as Bishop of Wilmington, before his retirement last year. In his Statement on Catholics in Public Life, issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Saltarelli compared the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade to their decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford; he said that both "have a comparable corrosive effect on public life, politics and society."
He continued: "No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: 'I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.' Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: 'I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.'" Click here for the full article.
During his remarks at the Synod of Bishops of Africa taking place at the Vatican, the Director of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), Jacques Diouf, rejected the myth that the increase in hunger is directly related to the increase in world population.
In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer at the FAO, Archbishop Renato Volante, said Diouf made his remarks in response to a question posed to him by the synod fathers.
Signs in English pointed to the pro-abortion views President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Zapatero share. Signs in Spanish included one proclaiming that Zapatero's mother chose life.
As President Barack Obama met with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on Tuesday, pro-life activists gathered on Capitol Hill to condemn both leaders’ pro-abortion policies, including Zapatero’s support for a Spanish law awaiting approval by Parliament that would make abortion available on demand to women 16 and older.
“What we are trying to do here is get the people to realize that there are alternatives to abortion, which is being promoted by Zapatero,” Walter Hintz of Madrid told CNSNews.com at the demonstration. Click here for the full article.
The Senate Finance Committee moved Tuesday toward a milestone vote on sweeping health care legislation that would fulfill Obama's top domestic priority. Its ultimate fate remained far from certain. With Democrats holding a 13-9 majority on the committee, the outcome of Tuesday's vote, expected after several hours of discussion by senators, was not in doubt. The big question mark was whether moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine would become the first Republican to support a health overhaul bill. The legislation that passed the other House and Senate committees did so without a single Republican vote.
Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago has said he will sign a new ordinance passed by the City Council at the behest of Planned Parenthood. The ordinance prevents pro-lifers from coming within 8 feet of a woman entering an abortion facility without her permission, for an area extending fifty feet around the building.
Mayor Daley said that the ordinance would "try to make sure nobody is harassed." He said that he did not want people to "harass and scream and yell" at those entering abortion facilities. "There has to be some civility left in our society," he explained.
Mayor Daley, who says he is Catholic, explained that he separates his religion from his politics: "My religion is very personal. ... Religion does not play a part when I make a decision on behalf of the people of Chicago. It is a decision I have to make as a mayor, not as a Catholic. ... That is separate for me."
If Mayor Daley signs this ordinance, he will be reversing a position that he explicitly affirmed years ago. In 1996, Daley ridiculed a proposal that also would have given women entering abortion mills an 8-foot buffer zone between them and anyone attempting to counsel them. He said that it would require "measuring tapes ... You'd get into arguments."
Another bizarre happening at the Northern Illinois Women's Center in Rockford, Illinois was reported last week, with one area pro-lifer saying that a policeman confiscated his large sign portraying an image of Jesus - though the same officer declined to remove an obscene image of Christ perched in the abortion facility's window.
The Northern Illinois Women's Center is notorious as the site of routine abuses against the community of pro-lifers who keep vigil there and for the grotesque and often blasphemous displays in the windows of the building.
Veteran Rockford pro-life witness Kevin Rilott told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) last week that the latest incident occurred Wednesday morning as he stood on public property in front of the abortion mill with a large image of Christ. According to Rilott, the confrontation began when the abortuary's security officer ordered Rilott to move.
"I have stood here for over ten years, so I kept praying," said Rilott.
Rilott says the security officer then came out and spoke with a police officer, who approached Rilott to tell him to hold the Christ sign that was propped up about two feet away. When Rilott declined, he says the police officer ordered him to turn off his video camera before calling a supervisor. The supervisor arrived within minutes to confiscate the Christ image, saying the sign was "unattended."
Rilott notes that one week earlier, when asked by pro-lifers to enforce removal of an obscene image of Christ in the abortion center's window under Rockford's ordinance against "offensive use of property," the same supervisor denied that the image was offensive.
"All of the violations, threats, vandalism, intimidation, and attacks of the abortion facility in the past few years and we are not aware of one time the abortion facility has been held accountable," said Rilott. "But in Rockford a simple picture of Jesus gets arrested and thrown in the back of a squad car."
As of Monday afternoon, the sign was still in police custody.
Rilott recalled that in August 2007, while being assaulted by an abortion supporter, it took a police officer 20 minutes to respond to his 911 calls. And then, in a more recent incident, when pro-lifer Eric Nelson was being verbally assaulted in a racial tirade by pro-abortion local Keith Sterkerson, who had a pitbull in tow at the time, police responded after over an hour.
"It would be funny if it wasn't so sad," commented Rockford pro-lifer George Lambert.
"In Rockford they arrest a picture of Jesus because it symbolizes truth and life. It's interesting that the picture of Jesus giving a double fisted f*** you sign is still proudly displayed in the clinic window," he added.
"We have gone from the blasphemous to the ridiculous," said pro-lifer Donna Modica. "It seems the only signs and pictures protected by free speech are the ones mocking God."
