On November 30, 1874, Mrs. Mary Dix died at her Chicago home from complications of a criminal abortion performed there. Dr. W. F. Aiken was arrested and charged with murder.
On November 30, 1926, 34-year-old Sophie Peterson died at Mercy Hospital in Chicago. She had been hospitalized due to complications of an illegal abortion performed October 27 in the Chicago office of Dr. Frederick Springe. Springe was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury on December 15.
A year to the day later, 22-year-old Lucille van Iderstine died in the Chicago office of Dr. Emil Gleitsman, from an abortion that had been performed on her that day. Gleitsman was indicted for felony murder in Lucille's death on January 15, 1928.
Were these criminal abortions, performed by physicians, typical of abortions before legalization?
Yes. Most abortions were performed by doctors.
Yes, though abortions by midwives or nurses were about as common.
Not really. Doctors did abortions, but only about a quarter of them.
Not at all. Most abortions were self-induced or performed by housewives or other untrained people.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
New information from an old source
On a whim, while I was in the State Library waiting for WestLaw to become available, I checked the 1970 New York Times index.
I found an abortion death that year that I hadn't known about:
Pearl Schwier, age 42, was 20 weeks pregnant when she sought a safe, legal abortion at St. Luke's hospital in New York City. She was brought into the operating room on July 6, 1970 for a hysterotomy abortion, which is simply a c-section in which the intention is to allow the baby to die rather than to deliver him or her alive. It was performed under general anesthesia. About 45 minutes into the procedure, Pearl had a reaction to the anesthesia and died.
I also found the names of two women whose deaths I'd known about, along with a some additional information.
"Alice" from the Life Dynamics "Blackmun Wall" is actually Carmen Rodriguez. Her death touched off local protests by a radical Puerto Rican group that blamed hospital staff for performing a risky saline abortion on a patient already known to have heart problems.
"Sheryl" from the "Blackmun Wall" is Barbara Riley. She suffered fatal sickle cell crisis.
I also got additional information on a woman I believe to be Maria Ortega, but I'll have to make another search to verify that this is the same woman.
I found an abortion death that year that I hadn't known about:
Pearl Schwier, age 42, was 20 weeks pregnant when she sought a safe, legal abortion at St. Luke's hospital in New York City. She was brought into the operating room on July 6, 1970 for a hysterotomy abortion, which is simply a c-section in which the intention is to allow the baby to die rather than to deliver him or her alive. It was performed under general anesthesia. About 45 minutes into the procedure, Pearl had a reaction to the anesthesia and died.
I also found the names of two women whose deaths I'd known about, along with a some additional information.
"Alice" from the Life Dynamics "Blackmun Wall" is actually Carmen Rodriguez. Her death touched off local protests by a radical Puerto Rican group that blamed hospital staff for performing a risky saline abortion on a patient already known to have heart problems.
"Sheryl" from the "Blackmun Wall" is Barbara Riley. She suffered fatal sickle cell crisis.
I also got additional information on a woman I believe to be Maria Ortega, but I'll have to make another search to verify that this is the same woman.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
1930: Michigan City abortion proves fatal
Seventeen-year-old Miss Dorothy Jasinski was brought to St. Mary's Hospital in Chicago by two unidentified women on November 17, 1930. Dorothy was treated there until her death on November 29. The coroner determined that Dorothy had died from an abortion performed in Michigan City, Indiana, the day she'd been brought to the hospital.
The coroner recommended identification of the person or persons responsible, and his or their arrest on charges of murder.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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The coroner recommended identification of the person or persons responsible, and his or their arrest on charges of murder.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Friday, November 28, 2008
1888: Snake oil salesman's wares prove fatal for Dakota woman
Mrs. George Libby, age 18, died November 28, 1888, in Wahpeton in the Dakota territories.
Before her death she admitted that she had bought abortifacient drugs from "a traveling doctor who made a specialty of selling such drugs."
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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Before her death she admitted that she had bought abortifacient drugs from "a traveling doctor who made a specialty of selling such drugs."
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Only Women Bleed
Reasoned Audacity had a post by this name, though I thought it was about the Washington Times article about a female med student who decides she doesn't want to be an abortionist after all. It had been fun practicing the technique on papayas, she learned. But it wasn't a very pleasant thing to do to women for a living:
Indeed. Only women bleed:
That evening, discussing the second-term abortion with her mother, Lesley described a process that she found disturbingly brutal, especially the stretching of the vagina.
"It's a lot more invasive than I thought," she said. "A papaya doesn't bleed and scream." Women do.
Indeed. Only women bleed:
Be unique! Just like us!
NARAL has a couple of interesting new ads out. Jill Stanek described watching them as like being the only non-stoned person in a beatnik coffee house.
As far as I can tell, the message is "Be just like us! Or you'll be one of THEM!"
"One of us! One of us! Gooble-gobble! Gooble-gobble!"
It kind of reminds me of this guy:
Be an original! Join the crowd!
I guess NARAL is figuring that vague works. If "Hope" and "Change" managed to put Harold Saxon in the White House, then "Free" and "Will" and "Power" can put a canula in a uterus and -- more to the point -- money into their coffers.
As far as I can tell, the message is "Be just like us! Or you'll be one of THEM!"
"One of us! One of us! Gooble-gobble! Gooble-gobble!"
It kind of reminds me of this guy:
Be an original! Join the crowd!
I guess NARAL is figuring that vague works. If "Hope" and "Change" managed to put Harold Saxon in the White House, then "Free" and "Will" and "Power" can put a canula in a uterus and -- more to the point -- money into their coffers.
1971: Safe, legal abortion causes gruesome death
"Monica" was a 31-year-old mother of five. She requested a safe, legal abortion when she was 8 weeks pregnant, but the abortion was delayed about a month in order to address "some health, personal and administrative problems."
Her doctor decided that it was best to simply remove Monica's uterus with the fetus still in it. The hysterectomy was done under general anesthesia with no apparent complications.
On the second day after surgery, Monica developed fever and nausea, and had no bowel sounds. The next day she felt unwell and had a distended abdomen.
The next day, she felt better and resumed eating, but still had not had a bowel movement.
Six days after the surgery, November 26, 1971, Monica began to scream and vomit. She reported severe abdominal pain and couldn't see. Within an hour of the onset of these symptoms, Monica died.
The autopsy revealed grim findings. Monica had a severe infection that had interfered with her bowel function. As she continued to eat but not to have bowel movements, her bowels backed up, allowing gastric juices to enter her lungs and begin to digest them. She also had bacteria in her brain, which may have caused her blindness in the final hour of her life.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Her doctor decided that it was best to simply remove Monica's uterus with the fetus still in it. The hysterectomy was done under general anesthesia with no apparent complications.
On the second day after surgery, Monica developed fever and nausea, and had no bowel sounds. The next day she felt unwell and had a distended abdomen.
The next day, she felt better and resumed eating, but still had not had a bowel movement.
Six days after the surgery, November 26, 1971, Monica began to scream and vomit. She reported severe abdominal pain and couldn't see. Within an hour of the onset of these symptoms, Monica died.
The autopsy revealed grim findings. Monica had a severe infection that had interfered with her bowel function. As she continued to eat but not to have bowel movements, her bowels backed up, allowing gastric juices to enter her lungs and begin to digest them. She also had bacteria in her brain, which may have caused her blindness in the final hour of her life.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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1923: Chicago doc leaves abortion patient dead
On November 26, 1923, 23-year-old Alice S. Johnson died at Chicago's West End Hospital from a criminal abortion performed there that day. The coroner identified Dr. Lorenz Lapsky as being responsible for Alice's death. Lapsky was indicted by a grand jury for felony murder on December 15.
Alice's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
Alice's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Does evil disguise itself as stupidity?
A rant. A full-fledged temper tantrum.
I've got a ... an individual who argues the most inane arguments. Such as: That an embryo isn't alive. ISN'T ALIVE.
If it's not alive, how can it grow? How can it develop into a fetus, and from there into a newborn? How do its cells reproduce and metabolize? And if it isn't alive IT WILL BE EXPELLED NATURALLY. That's called a miscarriage. Which is NOT an induced abortion. If you sell an induced abortion to somebody whose uterus does NOT contain a living embryo, you are guilty of FRAUD, and you will lose your medical license faster than if you did an abortion to kill a live embryo and managed to disembowel the mother while you were at it.
Such stupidity enrages me.
This is addlepated thinking that makes the most washed-out stoner look like Stephen Hawkings.
Unlike stoners, they don't just mind their own business, watching cartoons and eating Fritos. They organize. They infest blogs.
God help us, they VOTE.
When you have this kind of active rejection of truth, you have, well, active rejection of the Truth behind all truth.
And Satan is the Father of Lies, acting in opposition to Truth.
So... is the stupidity just a variation of evil?
Do they know it's evil?
Or are the, like the stoner, truly convinced that they're on to some deep metaphysical reality that ordinary people don't grasp?
At what point is the choice made? And what exactly is the choice? Are they knowingly selling their souls for whatever it is they gain by the stupidity? What sort of Faustian bargain do you make, that gains you not great knowledge and power, but just... just ...
What the hell do they get out of it?
I ranted a while, but I've come back and edited part of the rant out because I think I have a bit of a clue.
What do they get out of it?
The ability to do what their hearts tell them is a terrible evil without seeing the evil.
Why, if the embryo's not ALIVE, then you can't kill it, right? So it's okay to just keep having abortions. Because you're not killing anything. You're just ... removing some tissue. Like an endometrial biopsy, right?
In order to have to cling so tenaciously to something so patently false, they must at some level have a strong desire to be good.
Just not strong enough to make them take off the moral equivalent of Beer Goggles and see reality.
I've got a ... an individual who argues the most inane arguments. Such as: That an embryo isn't alive. ISN'T ALIVE.
If it's not alive, how can it grow? How can it develop into a fetus, and from there into a newborn? How do its cells reproduce and metabolize? And if it isn't alive IT WILL BE EXPELLED NATURALLY. That's called a miscarriage. Which is NOT an induced abortion. If you sell an induced abortion to somebody whose uterus does NOT contain a living embryo, you are guilty of FRAUD, and you will lose your medical license faster than if you did an abortion to kill a live embryo and managed to disembowel the mother while you were at it.
Such stupidity enrages me.
This is addlepated thinking that makes the most washed-out stoner look like Stephen Hawkings.
Unlike stoners, they don't just mind their own business, watching cartoons and eating Fritos. They organize. They infest blogs.
God help us, they VOTE.
When you have this kind of active rejection of truth, you have, well, active rejection of the Truth behind all truth.
And Satan is the Father of Lies, acting in opposition to Truth.
So... is the stupidity just a variation of evil?
Do they know it's evil?
Or are the, like the stoner, truly convinced that they're on to some deep metaphysical reality that ordinary people don't grasp?
At what point is the choice made? And what exactly is the choice? Are they knowingly selling their souls for whatever it is they gain by the stupidity? What sort of Faustian bargain do you make, that gains you not great knowledge and power, but just... just ...
What the hell do they get out of it?
I ranted a while, but I've come back and edited part of the rant out because I think I have a bit of a clue.
What do they get out of it?
The ability to do what their hearts tell them is a terrible evil without seeing the evil.
Why, if the embryo's not ALIVE, then you can't kill it, right? So it's okay to just keep having abortions. Because you're not killing anything. You're just ... removing some tissue. Like an endometrial biopsy, right?
In order to have to cling so tenaciously to something so patently false, they must at some level have a strong desire to be good.
Just not strong enough to make them take off the moral equivalent of Beer Goggles and see reality.
Poverty pimps poised to strike again
Cost of Rebuilding U.N.'s Palace? A Billion Dollars
It doesn't speak well of their management that they've let the place go so far to seed in the first place, does it? Don't most responsible property owners do routine upgrades and upkeep? You budget for upkeep when you move in, if you have an ounce of sense. So aside from all other matters, this speaks very ill of UN management in the first place.
And how much will all this failure to maintain set the UN back?
Some folks are advocating just building new offices elsewhere, since "keeping the Palais des Nations could cost more than double what it would take to build a new home from scratch."
It's a "symbol of international cooperation" all right. A symbol of how people of many nations can cooperate in graft and inefficiency. Let it fall into ruin, like Alcatraz. Let visitors ponder how the supposed best and brightest from all nations failed to plan for upkeep and upgrades to their property. Something a guy with a hot dog cart is capable of doing.
And wait, it gets better:
WTF?!?! How in the name of God did we let them get used to just pissing away money like this?
Where are the UN's priorities?
When I got stranded at the Pittsburgh airport a couple years back because of a cancelled flight, the guy ahead of me in line to try to arrange another flight was a UN worker on his way to a poverty conference in Kenya. They could book him on another flight in just 8 hours (the rest of us were having to wait 24 - 36 hours). But there were no first-class seats available. He'd have to fly coach.
He would wait, he said, for another first class seat. Flying coach was totally unacceptable.
Now, either this conference wasn't that important, or this guy's contributions to it weren't that important, if he could go ahead and arrive days late, just to be able to arrive in style and comfort. How many people could his first class ticket have actually lifted out of poverty?
I just went to Expedia and searched a flight from Pittsburgh to Nairobi, coach: $1,168. The same flight, first class: $4,897.
That guy could have said, "Okay, I'll take coach, but I want the difference in ticket costs refunded." And the $3,729 he saved could have provided one of the villages in Kenya with a well for potable water to stop children from dying of water-borne diseases.
But his comfort on the flight was more important than the children whose lives could have been immeasurably improved and even saved by the difference in ticket prices. And that's just one way!
Poverty pimps. They disgust me beyond words.
The U.N.'s Palace of Nations is falling apart.
The Palais des Nations is the U.N.'s European headquarters, flanked by the Swiss Alps to the west and Lake Geneva to the east. Peacocks roam freely on the grounds of the pristine, 111-acre Ariana Park that surrounds it.
But on the inside, the onetime home to the League of Nations is plagued by 70-year-old wiring, fire hazards and miles of rusty pipes that have flooded the archives repeatedly. Asbestos lines some of the walls, and the roof is in danger of caving in. The palace is in need of a major facelift.
It doesn't speak well of their management that they've let the place go so far to seed in the first place, does it? Don't most responsible property owners do routine upgrades and upkeep? You budget for upkeep when you move in, if you have an ounce of sense. So aside from all other matters, this speaks very ill of UN management in the first place.
And how much will all this failure to maintain set the UN back?
The tab: one billion dollars, says Director General Sergei Ordzhonikidze, who heads the U.N. Office at Geneva.
Some folks are advocating just building new offices elsewhere, since "keeping the Palais des Nations could cost more than double what it would take to build a new home from scratch."
"We are extremely conscious that our mandate is not to do renovations for the pleasure of renovations. This is not our purpose," said Marie Heuze, chief spokeswoman for the U.N. Office at Geneva.
Heuze said the buildings are a storehouse of history and stand as a symbol of international cooperation. Every year about 100,000 visitors come to the palace, where tours are led in 15 languages.
It's a "symbol of international cooperation" all right. A symbol of how people of many nations can cooperate in graft and inefficiency. Let it fall into ruin, like Alcatraz. Let visitors ponder how the supposed best and brightest from all nations failed to plan for upkeep and upgrades to their property. Something a guy with a hot dog cart is capable of doing.
And wait, it gets better:
Any major work on the Palais would likely come after the $1.9 billion renovation of the U.N.'s New York headquarters is complete.
WTF?!?! How in the name of God did we let them get used to just pissing away money like this?
Yet relief groups expressed bewilderment at the scope of the suggested renovations. Non-governmental organizations said $1 billion represents more than twice the amount the U.S. government spends worldwide on child survival and maternal health aid.
That $1 billion, relief groups said, is also larger than the entire humanitarian action appeal for all countries served by UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, which requested $850 million to address 39 humanitarian emergencies around the world in 2008.
$1 billion could also go a long way to feed the hungry. Oxfam America reports on its Web site that "$1,000 brings potable water to 22 families in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia...."
Where are the UN's priorities?
When I got stranded at the Pittsburgh airport a couple years back because of a cancelled flight, the guy ahead of me in line to try to arrange another flight was a UN worker on his way to a poverty conference in Kenya. They could book him on another flight in just 8 hours (the rest of us were having to wait 24 - 36 hours). But there were no first-class seats available. He'd have to fly coach.
He would wait, he said, for another first class seat. Flying coach was totally unacceptable.
Now, either this conference wasn't that important, or this guy's contributions to it weren't that important, if he could go ahead and arrive days late, just to be able to arrive in style and comfort. How many people could his first class ticket have actually lifted out of poverty?
I just went to Expedia and searched a flight from Pittsburgh to Nairobi, coach: $1,168. The same flight, first class: $4,897.
That guy could have said, "Okay, I'll take coach, but I want the difference in ticket costs refunded." And the $3,729 he saved could have provided one of the villages in Kenya with a well for potable water to stop children from dying of water-borne diseases.
But his comfort on the flight was more important than the children whose lives could have been immeasurably improved and even saved by the difference in ticket prices. And that's just one way!
Poverty pimps. They disgust me beyond words.
Thank you, Sarah Palin!
They forgot, "Thank you for standing up for special-needs kids and the unborn, and thanks for sharing your beautiful family with us."
For me, the best moment of the entire campaign was this one:
Three cheers for Piper's mom!
2003 - Woman bleeds to death after top-of-the-line abortion
Leigh Ann Stephens Alford, age 34, underwent a safe and legal abortion at the hands of Dr. Malachy DeHenre at Summit Medical Center of Alabama, a National Abortion Federation member clinic, on November 25, 2003.
Leigh Ann was discharged from the clinic 20 minutes after her abortion, according to a lawsuit filed by her husband. Within six hours, he said, he called the facility to report that Leigh Ann was suffering pain and fever. She died about 18 hours after the clinic had sent her home. Death was attributed to hemorrhagic shock from an unrecognized uterine perforation.
DeHenre's medical license was suspended in Mississippi and Alabama after the death. DeHenre, age 53, also performed abortions at New Woman Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as his own Jackson's Women's Health Organization.
Alabama suspended DeHenre's license as of July 28. The Mississippi suspension was expedited, rather than addressed in a board meeting scheduled for September 16. An Associated Press article quotes Dr. W. Joseph Burnett, executive director of the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure: "We couldn't wait another day to take action. He won't be practicing in Mississippi."
The Alabama medical board concluded that DeHenre's practice was conducted in such a way as to "endanger the health of patients," and found that he had committed "repeated malpractice."
Leigh Ann was discharged from the clinic 20 minutes after her abortion, according to a lawsuit filed by her husband. Within six hours, he said, he called the facility to report that Leigh Ann was suffering pain and fever. She died about 18 hours after the clinic had sent her home. Death was attributed to hemorrhagic shock from an unrecognized uterine perforation.
DeHenre's medical license was suspended in Mississippi and Alabama after the death. DeHenre, age 53, also performed abortions at New Woman Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as his own Jackson's Women's Health Organization.
Alabama suspended DeHenre's license as of July 28. The Mississippi suspension was expedited, rather than addressed in a board meeting scheduled for September 16. An Associated Press article quotes Dr. W. Joseph Burnett, executive director of the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure: "We couldn't wait another day to take action. He won't be practicing in Mississippi."
The Alabama medical board concluded that DeHenre's practice was conducted in such a way as to "endanger the health of patients," and found that he had committed "repeated malpractice."
DeHenry was also investigated after an abortion he performed on March 20, 2003. That patient began to hemorrhage and was transported to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where she underwent a total hysterectomy.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Monday, November 24, 2008
Cue violins
In the great tradition of Owen B. Evans, who lamented how much he'd suffered needlessly, being sued for killing Michelle Madden, we now have Bruce Steir (rhymes with fear), who wrote his tear-jerking prison memoir. Alas, the entire 144 days he spent in prison. (How's that compare to how much time Barack Obama spent in the Senate before he started running for President?)
Alas and alack, poor pitiful Dr. Steir. All he did was kill Sharon Hamplton by pulling her bowel through the back of her uterus, shoving it back in, leaving her shocky and with no medical supervison to be loaded into a wheelchair and shoved out the door to bleed to death. While he was on probation with the medical board for having nearly killed several other patients. It's not like he did anything so very naughty!
Cue violins. These abortionists sure have a tough life, being held accountable for killing their patients.
Alas and alack, poor pitiful Dr. Steir. All he did was kill Sharon Hamplton by pulling her bowel through the back of her uterus, shoving it back in, leaving her shocky and with no medical supervison to be loaded into a wheelchair and shoved out the door to bleed to death. While he was on probation with the medical board for having nearly killed several other patients. It's not like he did anything so very naughty!Cue violins. These abortionists sure have a tough life, being held accountable for killing their patients.
Not all it was cracked up to be
The Washington Post has a puff-piece about how one young medical student, Lesley, explores her options and decides not to become an abortionist after all.
She likes to help. She likes to make a difference. She went to a lot of trouble to arrange for medical students to practice abortion techniques on papayas so they could explore this exciting field of medicine.
But when she went to do her shadowing at an abortion clinic, she had second thoughts about becoming an abortionist herself.
The first thing she learned is that there isn't any real doctor/patient relationship. The patient was already on the table, glassy-eyed and sedated, when Lesley and the doctor walked in. And the doctor went to work:
The second patient was more effectively sedated, and Lesley participated in the abortion, hand-over-hand. Not so bad! Lesley stuck around to see the patients being "counseled". She didn't want to leave.
But not, evidently, disturbing enough to make her wonder if it was right to be killing the babies in question.
What the puff piece doesn't bother to tell the reader is that a properly trained ultrasonagrapher can determine fetal sex as early as 11 or 12 weeks, depending on the quality of the equipment and the position of the fetus. The writer chooses instead to give the false impression that it's impossible to determine the sex of a fetus at 14 weeks.
Tiny feet, tiny lungs, but in pieces no, it wouldn't look like a person, would it? Denial. It's not just a river in Egypt.
But even so, the brusqueness of abortion practice is starting to take its toll on Lesley:
And this is just after some time spent observing, some time spent hand-over-hand.
A papaya also doesn't die if you screw up.
It wasn't the destruction of the babies that bothered her. It was the way abortion was clearly an assault on the woman's body that bothered Lesley. Which it ought to do.
Lesley was left disillusioned.
You have to wonder what she thought she'd love about it. Seriously. What part of stepping into a room where a dazed, sedated woman is spread-eagled, sticking sharp things into her to get her baby out in pieces, then stripping off your gloves and doing the same thing to the next woman is there not to love?
Unique. That's one way to put it.
For only part of the right reason. That she can't picture herself inflicing humiliation and pain on women all day as being a very fulfilling way to spend her life.
But she still wants to recruit other people to spend their lives that way.
Which is sad.
HT: Pro Life News
UPDATE: Reasoned Audacity has a post on a different topic, entitled "Only Women Bleed" -- which made me think of the women versus papayas comment. Which made me think of this:
She likes to help. She likes to make a difference. She went to a lot of trouble to arrange for medical students to practice abortion techniques on papayas so they could explore this exciting field of medicine.
But when she went to do her shadowing at an abortion clinic, she had second thoughts about becoming an abortionist herself.
"Everyone talks about the context, the morality, the politics of it," she said the night before she would observe an actual abortion, "but nobody really knows what it is like in that moment between doctor and patient."
The first thing she learned is that there isn't any real doctor/patient relationship. The patient was already on the table, glassy-eyed and sedated, when Lesley and the doctor walked in. And the doctor went to work:
As Lesley watched, the doctor grabbed the tenaculum, numbed the cervix with a needle, grabbed the specula for dilation, then the suction machine. He was methodical and very fast. The patient was in obvious pain. Her screams gave Lesley the chills, and she thought she might throw up.
"I'm getting dizzy," she said aloud. The doctor told her to sit down. She backed away, found a bench and sat. She was hot and sweaty.
The second patient was more effectively sedated, and Lesley participated in the abortion, hand-over-hand. Not so bad! Lesley stuck around to see the patients being "counseled". She didn't want to leave.
The only woman crying that afternoon was one who was too far along to have an abortion and was sent away. Lesley helped with that ultrasound and saw the fetus moving. It was 20 weeks, 3 days old and "pretty real" to her. In previous weeks, she had tried to keep similar-sized babies alive. This "conflict of effort" was, to Lesley, "weird, even surreal."
But not, evidently, disturbing enough to make her wonder if it was right to be killing the babies in question.
The woman with the red heels asked for a printout of her ultrasound and wanted to know the sex of the 14-week-old fetus. It couldn't be determined.
What the puff piece doesn't bother to tell the reader is that a properly trained ultrasonagrapher can determine fetal sex as early as 11 or 12 weeks, depending on the quality of the equipment and the position of the fetus. The writer chooses instead to give the false impression that it's impossible to determine the sex of a fetus at 14 weeks.
Lesley watched as the doctor counted the parts of the fetus, and, to her surprise, she didn't find it jarring. To her, the parts appeared doll-like.
"It was definitely gruesome," she said. "You could make out what a fetus could look like, tiny feet, lungs, but it didn't look like a person." She knew this abortion was an act that her friend Litty considered tantamount to murder. She herself expected to be very upset. She'd felt that way at her first autopsy, that of a teenage boy who'd shot himself in the head. For weeks, she could not shake the image of the boy. But this was different. She didn't regard the fetus as a person yet. She said she was happy to help the woman: "I feel like I was giving [her] a new lease" on life.
Tiny feet, tiny lungs, but in pieces no, it wouldn't look like a person, would it? Denial. It's not just a river in Egypt.
But even so, the brusqueness of abortion practice is starting to take its toll on Lesley:
Later that morning, though, while conducting a pelvic exam, Lesley noted that she wasn't her usual slow, gentle self.
And this is just after some time spent observing, some time spent hand-over-hand.
That evening, discussing the second-term abortion with her mother, Lesley described a process that she found disturbingly brutal, especially the stretching of the vagina.
"It's a lot more invasive than I thought," she said. "A papaya doesn't bleed and scream." Women do."
A papaya also doesn't die if you screw up.
Lesley didn't want to have to steel herself emotionally to perform abortions, and she was coming to realize that that's what she'd have to do.
It wasn't the destruction of the babies that bothered her. It was the way abortion was clearly an assault on the woman's body that bothered Lesley. Which it ought to do.
Lesley was left disillusioned.
Even as she'd shadowed the abortion doctor, Lesley knew in her heart that this would not be the right place for her to make a difference. It was a big disappointment, she said. "I really thought I'd love it."
You have to wonder what she thought she'd love about it. Seriously. What part of stepping into a room where a dazed, sedated woman is spread-eagled, sticking sharp things into her to get her baby out in pieces, then stripping off your gloves and doing the same thing to the next woman is there not to love?
The things she cared about -- taking care of women, seeing them through the process -- hadn't happened. It was the nurse practitioner who cared for the patient. Vacuuming out a uterus and counting the parts of the fetus did not seem like a desirable way to spend her work days. It took a unique person to do that on a daily basis, she said.
Unique. That's one way to put it.
Lesley still believed passionately in abortion rights and was proud of what she'd accomplished at Maryland with her activism. She didn't want to let people down. Even so, she had to follow her heart. Somebody else -- maybe Laura Merkel, the new chapter president of Medical Students for Choice -- would become an abortion provider. But it wouldn't be her.
For only part of the right reason. That she can't picture herself inflicing humiliation and pain on women all day as being a very fulfilling way to spend her life.
But she still wants to recruit other people to spend their lives that way.
Which is sad.
HT: Pro Life News
UPDATE: Reasoned Audacity has a post on a different topic, entitled "Only Women Bleed" -- which made me think of the women versus papayas comment. Which made me think of this:
Next step after "Safe Sex"?
A User's Guide to Speed brochure available to teens at anti-drug program in Toronto
Tips like, "Go with a reputable dealer," and "Just do a test run of each new purchase".
I'll grant, the brochure was intended for users trying to cut down, but somebody was smoking something to have passed this out.
Tips like, "Go with a reputable dealer," and "Just do a test run of each new purchase".
I'll grant, the brochure was intended for users trying to cut down, but somebody was smoking something to have passed this out.
Adult stem cells save woman's leg
Adult Stem Cells Save Woman from Amputation:
Hey, ESCR folks, how many limbs have y'all saved? How many people's cancer is in remission because of your embryo-killing methods? How many paralyzed people have been given improved sensation and mobility because of the embryos you killed for them? How many people's damaged hearts have been mended thanks to the way you bravely kill embryos?
What's that? I can't hear you!
Then I"ll have to answer for you: NONE.
You've accomplished not a single treatment or cure, not even in lab rats.
Give it up, guys. You're selling your souls and getting nothing in return. That's a bad bargain.
Adult Stem Cell research and therapy has saved the leg of a woman facing amputation due to critical limb ischemia. In India, a 68 year old woman came to the hospital suffering from a large ulcer in her foot due to insufficient blood flow. Doctors thought that amputation was necessary.
Not so fast said Dr. Subrammaniyan ... of the Vijaya Health Centre in Chennai. There was one last option.
a team led by chief vascular surgeon S R Subrammaniyan tried stem cell therapy on Vidyalakshmi, extracting 100 ml of bone marrow from her, isolating the stem cells, and injecting them into the her calf. The therapy worked, healing her ulcer and forming new blood vessels that increased circulation in the affected area.
Today, Vidyalakshmi can walk and use her lower left limb just like her right one. Her case is just one among several in India where clinical trials on stem cell therapy have helped saved people’s limbs from amputation.
Hey, ESCR folks, how many limbs have y'all saved? How many people's cancer is in remission because of your embryo-killing methods? How many paralyzed people have been given improved sensation and mobility because of the embryos you killed for them? How many people's damaged hearts have been mended thanks to the way you bravely kill embryos?
What's that? I can't hear you!
Then I"ll have to answer for you: NONE.
You've accomplished not a single treatment or cure, not even in lab rats.
Give it up, guys. You're selling your souls and getting nothing in return. That's a bad bargain.
Now we'll see if anybody's paying attention
As I posted before, I became a friend of Clara Bell Duvall in FaceBook, and have been posting links to my blog posts about abortion deaths. So far, they've all been the horrible, tragic, unacceptable illegal kind that the Clara Bell Duvall Reproductive Rights Project enjoy getting their knickers in a twist over. But today's death is Michelle Madden, a co-ed who died in 1988 from a safe and legal abortion.
Will I be ousted as a friend? Are some deaths unmentionable? We shall see.
I've gotten no comments on the deaths I've posted already, and haven't noticed any click-throughs, so I'm guessing that the Clara Bell Duvall folks aren't exactly swimming with curiosity or an interest in anything they don't already know and believe.
Will I be ousted as a friend? Are some deaths unmentionable? We shall see.
I've gotten no comments on the deaths I've posted already, and haven't noticed any click-throughs, so I'm guessing that the Clara Bell Duvall folks aren't exactly swimming with curiosity or an interest in anything they don't already know and believe.
Anniversary: A tragic holiday surprise
Eighteen year old Michelle Madden, a coed, sought a safe and legal abortion from O.B. Evans at Family Planning Medical Center of Mobile, Alabama. It was performed on November 18, 1986. Michelle had been taking medication for epilepsy, and a doctor had told her that her baby would have birth defects.
When Michelle's parents arrived at the college to take her home for Thanksgiving, the house mother had sad news for them. Three days after the abortion, Michelle had collapsed. She was taken to the hospital, where doctors found a leg bone, two pieces of skull, and some placenta still in Michelle's uterus. The surgery to save her life was too late. Sepsis had already set in, and Michelle died November 24, three days after she was admitted. According to FindLaw, she bled to death.
Her parents sued Evans and the facility, and in 1991 a jury awarded them $10 million in damages. Evans appealed on the grounds that this would "devastate him financially", because his malpractice insurance would only cover $1 million. During the appeal, the parties agreed to settle for $5 million, with the insurance company paying the entire amount. Evans then sued his insurance company for not having settled with the family for $1 million prior to the trial, thus subjecting him to "emotional distress, humiliation, damage to his reputation, and loss of business" -- such "emotional distress", he asserted, was "so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it."
Interesting, that the lawsuit, and not the needless death of an 18-year-old girl who had trusted him, is what caused Evans such emotional distress. Though, of course, he had nobody to sue for that other than himself.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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When Michelle's parents arrived at the college to take her home for Thanksgiving, the house mother had sad news for them. Three days after the abortion, Michelle had collapsed. She was taken to the hospital, where doctors found a leg bone, two pieces of skull, and some placenta still in Michelle's uterus. The surgery to save her life was too late. Sepsis had already set in, and Michelle died November 24, three days after she was admitted. According to FindLaw, she bled to death.
Her parents sued Evans and the facility, and in 1991 a jury awarded them $10 million in damages. Evans appealed on the grounds that this would "devastate him financially", because his malpractice insurance would only cover $1 million. During the appeal, the parties agreed to settle for $5 million, with the insurance company paying the entire amount. Evans then sued his insurance company for not having settled with the family for $1 million prior to the trial, thus subjecting him to "emotional distress, humiliation, damage to his reputation, and loss of business" -- such "emotional distress", he asserted, was "so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it."
Interesting, that the lawsuit, and not the needless death of an 18-year-old girl who had trusted him, is what caused Evans such emotional distress. Though, of course, he had nobody to sue for that other than himself.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
An abortion injury
Martha H., age 20, filed suit against Saihb Sinuhe Halil, and the medical board investigated her case. She went to La Clinica Feminina on November 23, 1988, for a 7-week abortion to be performed by Halil. He failed to perform a proper examination of Martha before proceeding. He punctured her uterus twice and her bowel at least once, but neither informed Martha of this nor noted it on her chart. He allowed his unlicensed staff to make the decision to discharge the patient from the facility. On November 27 she was admitted to a hospital, and there the inuries were discovered and surgically treated. On December 20 she had to be again admitted to the hospital and required additional surgery to treat a bowel obstruction, periappendicitis, and peritonitis. (LA County Superior Court Case No. C720334; Los Angeles Times 7-6-93; California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576)
Additions to the Cemetery of Choice
Additions to the Cemetery of Choice
An hour on Westlaw gained me information on these deaths:
Alda Christopherson: Dr. Lillian Hobbs was convicted in the 1916 abortion death of this 21-year-old unmarried Chicago woman.
Bessie Kouns: Bessie implicated Dr. H.C. Dorroh in her deathbed statement.
Ruth Lemaire: Ruth implicated Dr. Lillian Hobbs in a deathbed statement.
Ellen Matson: Dr. Lillian Hobbs was sentenced to 14 years in Joliet for the 1917 abortion death of 29-year-old Ellen.
"Eudora" Roe: This 17-year-old girl lingered for nearly two months before finally dying of complications of an abortion performed in Wichita, Kansas in 1930.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
An hour on Westlaw gained me information on these deaths:
Alda Christopherson: Dr. Lillian Hobbs was convicted in the 1916 abortion death of this 21-year-old unmarried Chicago woman.
Bessie Kouns: Bessie implicated Dr. H.C. Dorroh in her deathbed statement.
Ruth Lemaire: Ruth implicated Dr. Lillian Hobbs in a deathbed statement.
Ellen Matson: Dr. Lillian Hobbs was sentenced to 14 years in Joliet for the 1917 abortion death of 29-year-old Ellen.
"Eudora" Roe: This 17-year-old girl lingered for nearly two months before finally dying of complications of an abortion performed in Wichita, Kansas in 1930.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Searches: anesthesia and rape, anesthesia and coma, kitchen-table abortions
Christmas shopping season is nearly upon us
Consider a gift in your loved one's name from the World Vision Catalog. Some gifts include:
Less than $100: China earthquake relief; $375 worth of food for Africa; $1,050 worth of school supplies; Sudan food and emergency relief; new mother and baby kit; a bicycle for a girl to go to school; or a goat to provide a hungry family with milk, more goats, and later, meat.
Less than $50: Five ducks to provide a hungry family with eggs, and later more ducks and the meat they provide; seeds, tools, and agricultural training; education for a child; $490 worth of clothing; or immunizations.
Less than $30: A chicken to provide a hungry family with eggs, and later more chickens for eggs and meat; drought-resistant seeds; malaria prevention for one family; help for children with disabilities; $125 worth of food for Africa; support to help rescue sexually-exploited girls; or a caregiver kit.
Or consider something from the Mercy Ships gift catalog. Gifts range from $25 for a New Beginning kit for a woman recovering from fistula surgery or 5 pair of protective sunglasses for patients recovering from sight-restoring eye surgery, through $45 to provide a village with agricultural training, $100 to provide a case of surgical gowns, $360 to sponsor life-changing surgery, $3,000 to provide a village with clean water, $10,000 to provide a complete set of surgical instruments to perform sight-saving surgery. Many of these big-ticket items would be excellent holiday projects for a club, scout troop, or civic organization.
Or consider something from the Mercy Ships gift catalog. Gifts range from $25 for a New Beginning kit for a woman recovering from fistula surgery or 5 pair of protective sunglasses for patients recovering from sight-restoring eye surgery, through $45 to provide a village with agricultural training, $100 to provide a case of surgical gowns, $360 to sponsor life-changing surgery, $3,000 to provide a village with clean water, $10,000 to provide a complete set of surgical instruments to perform sight-saving surgery. Many of these big-ticket items would be excellent holiday projects for a club, scout troop, or civic organization.
Celebrate Victory in Iraq!
Read about it here.
Does this look like war to you?
Or this?
Our servicemembers deserve a huge celebration, one they'll never get from the MSM or the politicians. They'll have to get it from us.
Yes, there's still violence in Iraq. But it took a lot of Japanese warriors a long time to catch on to the fact that WWII was over. We ought not to let a bunch of loosely-organized murdering creeps steal our troops' thunder.
Go to Zombietime to get graphics and pictures, and to commit to joining the celebration.
November 22 malpractice anniversaries
"Jean" and her husband visited Hallmark Clinic when they suspected that she was pregnant. A clinic pamphlet indicated that Hallmark used "the most modern, and by far the safest" abortion technique, and that abortions past 12 weeks gestation would be performed by Hallmark's Board Certified or Board Eligible doctors at a local hospital, as required by law, rather than in the clinic. Reassured by the pamphlet, Jean returned for an abortion on November 20, 1973. Because the abortion was being done in the clinic rather than the hospital, Jean believed that her pregnancy was in the first trimester. Harold Hoke performed a suction abortion, then discharged Jean without a post-abortion examination. Jean suffered "excruciating pain and bleeding" at home. At 5 a.m. on November 22, Jean fell into semi-consciousness. Jean's mother-in-law rushed her to the emergency room, where she expelled a severely mutilated 19-week female fetus. The fetus was missing both arms and one leg. The rib cage was exposed and lung tissue was sticking out the left side of the chest. The skin was damaged at the neck and right side of the face, "and there was distortion of the facial features". Jean suffered a severe depressive reaction at the sight of her mangled, dead baby. Jean was hospitalized, and treated for depression and severe infection. She returned home on bed rest, and was unable to work. (Lincoln County Superior Court Case No. 74CVS247)
"Brandy" was 18 years old when she went to Andre Nehorayoff's office on November 22, 1989, for a second trimester abortion. Nehorayoff "failed to perform and/or record the findings of an adequate medical history and physical examination." All he recorded were pulse, blood pressure, and weight. He didn't use laminaria and inadequately dilated her cervix. During the abortion, Nehorayoff pulled a loop of Brandy's bowel through her cervix through a 2.5 cm tear he'd made in the back of her uterus. Instead of stopping the procedure and transferring Brandy to a hospital, Nehorayoff just pushed the loop of bowel back through the hole and continued with the abortion. Only after the abortion did he hospitalize Brandy. Surgeons there found "a 6.5 segment of devascularized bowel" which they had to remove. They also had to remove fetal parts Nehorayoff had left in Brandy's abdominal cavity. (Medical board disciplinary document) Nehorayoff also performed the fatal abortions on "Ellen" and "Faye".
A suit by Suzanne W. alleged that she underwent an abortion November 22, 1989 by Dr. Michael Gold at Southern Vermont Women's Health Center in Rutland, Vermont. Gold perforated her uterus and bladder. Suzanne required surgical repair, performed at Rutland Regional Medical Center. She sued for permanent injuries, continuing health problems and difficulty controlling bladder functions. Suzanne indicated that she would not have consented to an abortion had the risks been adequately explained. In his deposition 73-year-old Gold stated "the placenta and a hand of the fetus had been removed, and an omentum came into the canula;" "Omentum is the apron of fat that hangs in front of the viscera in the abdominal cavity.... And when you see omentum in the canula, you realize that you're in the abdominal cavity or the abdominal cavity has come into the instrument." (Rutland Superior Court Docket No. S0806-91RcC; Rutland Herald 8-2-94, 9-24-94, 9-26-94, 9-27-94, 10-14-94)
"Brandy" was 18 years old when she went to Andre Nehorayoff's office on November 22, 1989, for a second trimester abortion. Nehorayoff "failed to perform and/or record the findings of an adequate medical history and physical examination." All he recorded were pulse, blood pressure, and weight. He didn't use laminaria and inadequately dilated her cervix. During the abortion, Nehorayoff pulled a loop of Brandy's bowel through her cervix through a 2.5 cm tear he'd made in the back of her uterus. Instead of stopping the procedure and transferring Brandy to a hospital, Nehorayoff just pushed the loop of bowel back through the hole and continued with the abortion. Only after the abortion did he hospitalize Brandy. Surgeons there found "a 6.5 segment of devascularized bowel" which they had to remove. They also had to remove fetal parts Nehorayoff had left in Brandy's abdominal cavity. (Medical board disciplinary document) Nehorayoff also performed the fatal abortions on "Ellen" and "Faye".
A suit by Suzanne W. alleged that she underwent an abortion November 22, 1989 by Dr. Michael Gold at Southern Vermont Women's Health Center in Rutland, Vermont. Gold perforated her uterus and bladder. Suzanne required surgical repair, performed at Rutland Regional Medical Center. She sued for permanent injuries, continuing health problems and difficulty controlling bladder functions. Suzanne indicated that she would not have consented to an abortion had the risks been adequately explained. In his deposition 73-year-old Gold stated "the placenta and a hand of the fetus had been removed, and an omentum came into the canula;" "Omentum is the apron of fat that hangs in front of the viscera in the abdominal cavity.... And when you see omentum in the canula, you realize that you're in the abdominal cavity or the abdominal cavity has come into the instrument." (Rutland Superior Court Docket No. S0806-91RcC; Rutland Herald 8-2-94, 9-24-94, 9-26-94, 9-27-94, 10-14-94)
Friday, November 21, 2008
1924: Mystery abortion in Chicago proves fatal
On November 21, 1924, 24-year-old Mildred Bleschke died at Chicago's Grant Hospital from complications of an abortion performed earlier that day.
The perpetrator was never identified.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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The perpetrator was never identified.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Abortion deaths in 1987
The Centers for Disease Control deigned to count the following abortion deaths in their most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary, for 2004:
Today I'll look at deaths in 1987. They count 7 legal and 2 illegal.
I have 11; 10 legal and one likely illegal, which means that I counted at least three that the CDC missed, but I likely missed an illegal death.
Brenda Benton died from hepatic necrosis due to toxicity reaction to abortion anesthesia.
Belinda Byrd was left unattended for three hours after her five-minute abortion.
Kathy Davis died of heart failure after her safe, legal abortion.
Elise Kalat went into bronchospasms and died two days after her abortion.
Patricia King died in an abortion facility that her sister described as looking "like a haunted house".
Myria McFadden suffered heart and lung failure after her abortion.
Michelle Thames was one of four women I know of who died at Her Medical Clinic.
Iris Velazquez's survivors sued after her abortion, which they said was illegal.
Pamela Wainwright left two children, one of them with Down syndrome, motherless after her abortionist accidentally pumped carbon dioxide into her bloodstream.
Sheila Watley died of an embolism after her abortion.
Diane Watson died when four doctors at the abortion facility all failed to resuscitate her.
Remember that the CDC will count an abortion death as an illegal abortion death if the doctor's license was suspended or revoked, even if the woman had no way of knowing this and believed her abortion to be one of the perfectly safe, legal kind. So it's possible that one or more of these apparently legal deaths was "illegal" in their eyes. We have no way of knowing which ones they counted or how they classified them.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Today I'll look at deaths in 1987. They count 7 legal and 2 illegal.
I have 11; 10 legal and one likely illegal, which means that I counted at least three that the CDC missed, but I likely missed an illegal death.
Remember that the CDC will count an abortion death as an illegal abortion death if the doctor's license was suspended or revoked, even if the woman had no way of knowing this and believed her abortion to be one of the perfectly safe, legal kind. So it's possible that one or more of these apparently legal deaths was "illegal" in their eyes. We have no way of knowing which ones they counted or how they classified them.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Collateral damage
I've been trying to find the ratio of unintended civilian casualties for every enemy combatant killed by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, to no avail.
The closest I can get to an estimate of how much collateral damage our troops are causing is this piece, that estimates a little more than one civilian death for every 12 bombs or missiles our troops use.
I'll round it up, say that it's two civilian deaths for every dozen bombs or missiles.
Our targets aren't so much enemy combatants as enemy equipment -- tanks, weapons caches, munitions factories, and so forth -- and efficacy is counted in terms of whether the target was destroyed, not whether combatants were killed. But the equipment isn't just sitting there unattended. I think it's a safe assumption that if a bomb hits its intended target, it's also taking out at least one enemy combatant. And for the sake of comparisons, I'll go for the very lowest estimate and say that each successful bomb or missile is taking out only one enemy.
This article estimates that 75% of bombs were hitting their intended targets. That's 3/4, which is 9/12.
So, if we're making the low estimate of combatant casualties (one per successful bomb or missile) and a high estimate of civilian casualties (two per dozen bombs or missiles), every dozen missiles is taking out nine enemy combatants and two civilians. For every 100 of the enemy killed, we are (at the absolute highest estimate) taking out 22 civilians.
Let's compare the War on Terror, then, to the War on Down Syndrome, which kills three genetically standard babies for every "enemy" (baby with Down syndrome) successfully eliminated. For every 100 of the "enemy" killed, we are killing 300 "civilians" -- non-targeted "normal" babies. That's at least 13 times the "collateral damage" rate of combat bombing missions.
What has the world come to, when doctors have at least a 13-times higher collateral damage rate than military bombers?
Who is killing indiscriminately here?
The closest I can get to an estimate of how much collateral damage our troops are causing is this piece, that estimates a little more than one civilian death for every 12 bombs or missiles our troops use.
I'll round it up, say that it's two civilian deaths for every dozen bombs or missiles.
Our targets aren't so much enemy combatants as enemy equipment -- tanks, weapons caches, munitions factories, and so forth -- and efficacy is counted in terms of whether the target was destroyed, not whether combatants were killed. But the equipment isn't just sitting there unattended. I think it's a safe assumption that if a bomb hits its intended target, it's also taking out at least one enemy combatant. And for the sake of comparisons, I'll go for the very lowest estimate and say that each successful bomb or missile is taking out only one enemy.
This article estimates that 75% of bombs were hitting their intended targets. That's 3/4, which is 9/12.
To eliminate a hundred guys like this, we accidentally kill 22 people we didn't intend to kill.
So, if we're making the low estimate of combatant casualties (one per successful bomb or missile) and a high estimate of civilian casualties (two per dozen bombs or missiles), every dozen missiles is taking out nine enemy combatants and two civilians. For every 100 of the enemy killed, we are (at the absolute highest estimate) taking out 22 civilians.
Let's compare the War on Terror, then, to the War on Down Syndrome, which kills three genetically standard babies for every "enemy" (baby with Down syndrome) successfully eliminated. For every 100 of the "enemy" killed, we are killing 300 "civilians" -- non-targeted "normal" babies. That's at least 13 times the "collateral damage" rate of combat bombing missions.
To eliminate 100 people like this guy, we accidentally kill 300 people we didn't intend to kill. So evidently we consider this guy thirteen times as threatening as that guy in the other picture.
What has the world come to, when doctors have at least a 13-times higher collateral damage rate than military bombers?
Who is killing indiscriminately here?
Pray for Tiller's lawyer
Tiller’s Attorney Loses Control In Court While Irrational Conspiracy Theories Abound
Imagine you're a lawyer for a high-profile abortion doctor. Imagine that you became his lawyer initially simply because hey, he's a paying client. You're a defense attorney. This is what you do. And you figured the publicity would be good for business. Or maybe you're "prochoice" and you think he's helping women. Whatever. You take the case.
Imagine that you find out the reprehensible things this guy is doing. Abortions on underage girls -- some as young as 10 years old -- without reporting the abuse and making sure that the girls are safe and free from further abuse. Abortions way into the third trimester, way past viability, for the flimsiest of reasons. You learn that your client plays Russian roulette with patients' lives, keeping them in a motel room under the care of their loved ones, while he performs these risky procedures. A 19-year-old mentally disabled rape victim died because of this shoddy care. But still you're expected to defend this guy.
By attacking the people who are trying to uphold the law. By attacking absolutely everybody who even remotely had a hand in trying to uphold the law and protect the public.
Yeah, you're a defense attorney. You're used to defending the guilty. But this guy is not a garden-variety crook. He facilitates child rape. He stabs babies in the heart with needles, injecting the same drug used in executions. He allows his staff to send critically ill patients to the La Quinta in the care of their parents, rather than sending them to a hospital for desperately-needed care. He betrays the trust of his patients, the public, everybody around him. And there you are, linking your reputation with his.
Even by the standards of your clients, this guy is evil. And you're defending him. And the world is watching.
If it ever becomes widely known what he really does, your name is mud. You might as well have defended Nazis at Nuremberg.
And you might even have a conscience. You might start to wonder if getting this guy off the hook and allowing him to continue to prey on the public is a morally acceptable thing.
Wouldn't you crack under the strain?
Add Dan Monnat to your prayer list.
UPDATE: Evidently the 10-year-old was "referred" for her abortion by the prosecutor in her home state. Since when can a freaking prosecutor refer for a "medically necessary" abortion?!
Imagine you're a lawyer for a high-profile abortion doctor. Imagine that you became his lawyer initially simply because hey, he's a paying client. You're a defense attorney. This is what you do. And you figured the publicity would be good for business. Or maybe you're "prochoice" and you think he's helping women. Whatever. You take the case.
Imagine that you find out the reprehensible things this guy is doing. Abortions on underage girls -- some as young as 10 years old -- without reporting the abuse and making sure that the girls are safe and free from further abuse. Abortions way into the third trimester, way past viability, for the flimsiest of reasons. You learn that your client plays Russian roulette with patients' lives, keeping them in a motel room under the care of their loved ones, while he performs these risky procedures. A 19-year-old mentally disabled rape victim died because of this shoddy care. But still you're expected to defend this guy.
By attacking the people who are trying to uphold the law. By attacking absolutely everybody who even remotely had a hand in trying to uphold the law and protect the public.
Yeah, you're a defense attorney. You're used to defending the guilty. But this guy is not a garden-variety crook. He facilitates child rape. He stabs babies in the heart with needles, injecting the same drug used in executions. He allows his staff to send critically ill patients to the La Quinta in the care of their parents, rather than sending them to a hospital for desperately-needed care. He betrays the trust of his patients, the public, everybody around him. And there you are, linking your reputation with his.
Even by the standards of your clients, this guy is evil. And you're defending him. And the world is watching.
If it ever becomes widely known what he really does, your name is mud. You might as well have defended Nazis at Nuremberg.
And you might even have a conscience. You might start to wonder if getting this guy off the hook and allowing him to continue to prey on the public is a morally acceptable thing.
Wouldn't you crack under the strain?
Add Dan Monnat to your prayer list.
UPDATE: Evidently the 10-year-old was "referred" for her abortion by the prosecutor in her home state. Since when can a freaking prosecutor refer for a "medically necessary" abortion?!
Two Chicago back-alley deaths, November 20, 1925
On November 20, 1925, 23-year-old Mrs. Helen Bain died in Chicago from complications of a criminal abortion performed that day. A physician, George Slater, was arrested on November 21 for Helen's death. Slater was indicted by a grand jury for homicide on May 1, 1928.
That same day, 29-year-old Anna Kick died in Chicago's Washington Park Hospital from an abortion performed that day at an undisclosed location. The coroner determined that a midwife was responsible for Anna's death, but did not determine the midwife's name.
Which woman, Helen or Anna, found the most common type of criminal abortionist?
Helen. Most criminal abortions were done by doctors.
Anna. Most criminal abortions were done by paramedical professionals.
Both. In Chicago at that time, criminal abortionists were a pretty even mix of doctors and paramedicals such as midwives or nurses.
Neither. Most criminal abortions were performed by "back alley butchers" with no medical training.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
That same day, 29-year-old Anna Kick died in Chicago's Washington Park Hospital from an abortion performed that day at an undisclosed location. The coroner determined that a midwife was responsible for Anna's death, but did not determine the midwife's name.
Which woman, Helen or Anna, found the most common type of criminal abortionist?
Helen. Most criminal abortions were done by doctors.
Anna. Most criminal abortions were done by paramedical professionals.
Both. In Chicago at that time, criminal abortionists were a pretty even mix of doctors and paramedicals such as midwives or nurses.
Neither. Most criminal abortions were performed by "back alley butchers" with no medical training.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Abortion deaths in 1988
The Centers for Disease Control deigned to count the following abortion deaths in their most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary, for 2004:
Today I'll look at deaths in 1988. The CDC counts 16 legal and 0 illegal.
I have 14:
Demetrice Andrews died of multiple organ failure.
"Kelly" B was charted as "pink, responsive, alert" though she was in full cardio-respiratory arrest.
Junette Barnes bled to death.
Teresa Causey's last words were, "Oh, Mama, Mama, it hurts so much!"
Erna Fisher choked to death on her own vomit on the abortion table.
Dawn Mendoza started screaming and gasping for breath during her abortion.
Denise Montoya was 25 weeks pregnant when Douglas Karpen performed an outpatient abortion on her.
Joyce Ortenzio died of septic shock.
Katrina Poole died of post-abortion hemorrhage.
Allegra Roseberry consented to her abortion after being lied to about her baby's condition and the criteria to get into a cancer treatment program.
Stacy Ruckman was deliberately overdosed on Lidocaine.
Teresa Smith died of an embolism.
Laura Sorrels was found dead in a motel room, her 1-year-old daughter by her side.
Tami Suematsu went into respiratory failure.
That means that there are at least two safe, legal abortion deaths in 1988 that I don't know about.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Today I'll look at deaths in 1988. The CDC counts 16 legal and 0 illegal.
I have 14:
That means that there are at least two safe, legal abortion deaths in 1988 that I don't know about.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Take the Verbal Reasoning Test!
This test asks you to read passages, then gives you statements and asks if the passage indiates that the statement is true or likely true, false or likely false, or if you didn't get enough information to judge this.
Excellent practice for critical reasoning skills!
Excellent practice for critical reasoning skills!
Poverty Pimps Strike Again
Foreign Aid Money Spent on $23 Million Art Ceiling at U.N. Human Rights Council
The freaking thing looks like a fraternity prank. And it was bouoght with money that was supposed to be spent feeding the poor.
Things like this are why conservatives are "opposed to programs to help the poor". Because you would never in a million years voluntarily give money to a private charity that was so wasteful of money intended to help starving people. We support -- of our own volition -- private charities. Private charities that have to be accountable to their donors. These guys don't. End of discussion.
The freaking thing looks like a fraternity prank. And it was bouoght with money that was supposed to be spent feeding the poor.
Things like this are why conservatives are "opposed to programs to help the poor". Because you would never in a million years voluntarily give money to a private charity that was so wasteful of money intended to help starving people. We support -- of our own volition -- private charities. Private charities that have to be accountable to their donors. These guys don't. End of discussion.
Call for information "safe" and "unsafe" defined
I've noticed that lately abortion advocates have stopped using the dichotomy "legal" versus "illegal" abortions and instead refer to "safe" or "unsafe".
I've found "unsafe" defined here: "According to the World Health Organization, unsafe abortion is the termination of a pregnancy carried out by someone without the skills or training to perform the procedure safely, or in an environment that does not meet minimal medical standards, or both."
I recall seeing something indicating that by definition, all legal abortions are "safe".
Does anybody have anything on this?
I thought about it after reviewing a blog post about Richard Mucie, the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist who performed the fatal abortion on Nancy Ward in 1968.
After Roe, Mucie was able to get Nancy's abortion retroactively declared legal. I noted that this "leaves abortion advocates in a quandry: Was Nancy's abortion an inexcusable, tragic, back-alley abortion? Or was it just an example of how all surgery has risks? I've yet to get any answer."
And the new dichotomy of "safe" versus "unsafe" doesn't give a clear answer either. Mucie was a physician. He had an office. He's no different from any number of safe-n-legal practitioners getting the nod from abortion advocacy organizations. That would make Nancy's abortion "safe". Which strikes me as oxymoronic. If she's dead, how can it be "safe"?
To me, all abortion deaths are preventable and needless. To the abortion lobby, only some of them are. It used to be that the "illegal" deaths were preventable and needless, and the "legal" deaths can be attributed to "Shit happens." Does the new paradigm of "safe" versus "unsafe" change that?
(And, presumably, only "unsafe" abortion deaths are needless and tragic. "Safe" abortion deaths are just the price you pay to stamp out the dreaded fetus scourge.)
I still draw the line on what's "legal" and "illegal" based on the woman's perception at the time of the abortion. Did she think this was a perfectly safe, legal abortion? Or did she know she was taking her chances with a "back alley butcher"?
Though I might draw new categories: "presumed safe", "presumed risky", and "clearly high-risk", with abortions by reputable physicians or trained laypeople as "presumed safe", etc.
I've found "unsafe" defined here: "According to the World Health Organization, unsafe abortion is the termination of a pregnancy carried out by someone without the skills or training to perform the procedure safely, or in an environment that does not meet minimal medical standards, or both."
I recall seeing something indicating that by definition, all legal abortions are "safe".
Does anybody have anything on this?
I thought about it after reviewing a blog post about Richard Mucie, the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist who performed the fatal abortion on Nancy Ward in 1968.
After Roe, Mucie was able to get Nancy's abortion retroactively declared legal. I noted that this "leaves abortion advocates in a quandry: Was Nancy's abortion an inexcusable, tragic, back-alley abortion? Or was it just an example of how all surgery has risks? I've yet to get any answer."
And the new dichotomy of "safe" versus "unsafe" doesn't give a clear answer either. Mucie was a physician. He had an office. He's no different from any number of safe-n-legal practitioners getting the nod from abortion advocacy organizations. That would make Nancy's abortion "safe". Which strikes me as oxymoronic. If she's dead, how can it be "safe"?
To me, all abortion deaths are preventable and needless. To the abortion lobby, only some of them are. It used to be that the "illegal" deaths were preventable and needless, and the "legal" deaths can be attributed to "Shit happens." Does the new paradigm of "safe" versus "unsafe" change that?
(And, presumably, only "unsafe" abortion deaths are needless and tragic. "Safe" abortion deaths are just the price you pay to stamp out the dreaded fetus scourge.)
I still draw the line on what's "legal" and "illegal" based on the woman's perception at the time of the abortion. Did she think this was a perfectly safe, legal abortion? Or did she know she was taking her chances with a "back alley butcher"?
Though I might draw new categories: "presumed safe", "presumed risky", and "clearly high-risk", with abortions by reputable physicians or trained laypeople as "presumed safe", etc.
Cue crickets chirping
A Stem Cell First- New Organ Created and Transplanted Using Adult Stem Cells
Granted, it was a simple organ, or rather structure, since I'm not sure a section of trachea counts as an organ. But it's more than the Dr. Frankensteins have been able to do with their gutted embryos.
Even the faintest hint of the possibility of success in lab rats with embryonic stem cells gets shouted from the rooftops. But even the most spectacular results with adult stem cells are relegated to Section B page 13, right under the "bus plunge" snippet.
Granted, it was a simple organ, or rather structure, since I'm not sure a section of trachea counts as an organ. But it's more than the Dr. Frankensteins have been able to do with their gutted embryos.
Even the faintest hint of the possibility of success in lab rats with embryonic stem cells gets shouted from the rooftops. But even the most spectacular results with adult stem cells are relegated to Section B page 13, right under the "bus plunge" snippet.
1924: Unknown perp kills woman with abortion in Chicago
On November 19, 1924, 38-year-old Elizabeth Strazdas died at Chicago's Mother Cabrini Hospital from complications of a criminal abortion performed that day. The person responsible for Elizabeth's death was never identified.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Let me guess -- public school educations?
The View is pretty dim, it seems. Neither Whoopi Goldberg nor Sherri Shepherd had a clue what suffrage is. Whoopi read it off the teleprompter, evidently, then had a "Tell me about the rabbits, George" moment which Sherri compounded with, "I guess it’s when black people had to, you know, they didn’t want to die for being black. They didn’t want to be lynched. They wanted to be able to walk through the front door."
It's the right to vote, you addlepated twits!
Do your freaking homework before the show. It's not like they don't pay you enough to review what's gonna be coming up on the teleprompter and at least make sure you understand the big words.
Particularly big words that you could have learned just by sitting slack-jawed in front of the TV as a kid.
And Whoopi is the same dim bulb that didn't understand what the 13th Amendment did. It freed the slaves dipstick! By clear Constitutional process that can't simply be undone because a President has a senior moment or whatever she thought McCain was going to do to put chains on her wrists.
Overpaid bimbos, the whole clueless lot of them.
It's the right to vote, you addlepated twits!
Do your freaking homework before the show. It's not like they don't pay you enough to review what's gonna be coming up on the teleprompter and at least make sure you understand the big words.
Particularly big words that you could have learned just by sitting slack-jawed in front of the TV as a kid.
And Whoopi is the same dim bulb that didn't understand what the 13th Amendment did. It freed the slaves dipstick! By clear Constitutional process that can't simply be undone because a President has a senior moment or whatever she thought McCain was going to do to put chains on her wrists.
Overpaid bimbos, the whole clueless lot of them.
Who wants to take bets on how long this will last?
An abortion advocacy organization put a profile of Clara Bell Duvall on FaceBook.
I became a friend, then posted links to the Cemetery of Choice as well as to the posting about today's anniversaries.
The Cemetery of Choice I imagine they'll tolerate. Today's post I imagine they'll tolerate -- all three were criminal abortion deaths. Likewise I imagine they'll tolerate tomorrow's death -- Elizabeth Strazdas, since her abortion was illegal. Ditto for Thursday, when I'll have two more illegal abortion deaths. Ditto Friday, when my only death is an illegal abortion death. But Saturday's anniversary is Michelle Madden -- a safe, legal abortion death.
So! Who wants to bet that on Saturday I'm deleted as a friend? Or will it take until the 25th, when I post Leigh Ann Alford?
How many safe, legal abortion deaths will it take before Clara Bell Duvall decides that only certain women's deaths are worthy of mourning?
Or am I underestimating them?
UPDATE, November 20: So far I'm still a friend, but nobody's commenting on the posts, either. And I'm not seeing any click-throughs. I get the feeling that nobody there is interested in learning anything, not even more juicy "back alley" stories that they can be indignant about.
I became a friend, then posted links to the Cemetery of Choice as well as to the posting about today's anniversaries.
The Cemetery of Choice I imagine they'll tolerate. Today's post I imagine they'll tolerate -- all three were criminal abortion deaths. Likewise I imagine they'll tolerate tomorrow's death -- Elizabeth Strazdas, since her abortion was illegal. Ditto for Thursday, when I'll have two more illegal abortion deaths. Ditto Friday, when my only death is an illegal abortion death. But Saturday's anniversary is Michelle Madden -- a safe, legal abortion death.
So! Who wants to bet that on Saturday I'm deleted as a friend? Or will it take until the 25th, when I post Leigh Ann Alford?
How many safe, legal abortion deaths will it take before Clara Bell Duvall decides that only certain women's deaths are worthy of mourning?
Or am I underestimating them?
UPDATE, November 20: So far I'm still a friend, but nobody's commenting on the posts, either. And I'm not seeing any click-throughs. I get the feeling that nobody there is interested in learning anything, not even more juicy "back alley" stories that they can be indignant about.
Why Obama loves the public education system
It produces an ignorant electorate.
I wish they had also asked these two questions:
1. What is Barack Obama's greatest accomplishment that makes you believe he will be a good President?
2. What Obama policy do you most strongly support?
I bet none of those 12 people would have an answer to either question.
HowObamaGotElected.com
HT: Fr. John Whiteford
I wish they had also asked these two questions:
1. What is Barack Obama's greatest accomplishment that makes you believe he will be a good President?
2. What Obama policy do you most strongly support?
I bet none of those 12 people would have an answer to either question.
HowObamaGotElected.com
HT: Fr. John Whiteford
Three criminal deaths
On November 18, 1942, 26-year-old Madeline McGeehan died at Prospect Hospital in New York after an illegal abortion. Arrested were Dr. Joseph Nisonoff; his nurse, Camille Ewald; his receptionist, Pearl Tense; and Dr. Max J. Weinstein, who was thought to have referred Madeline to Nisonoff. Nisonoff was out on bail after being charged with performing another abortion, which the woman survived. A man identified as Madeline's friend, Henry Elters, was held as a material witness. Nisonoff was sentenced to 5 years in state prison, and Weinstein was sentenced to the city penitentiary.
Joyce Chorney, age 25, died Wednesday, November 18, 1953. An autopsy was performed at Bellevue Hospital. It showed that she had died of an induced abortion. Fifty-four-year-old Dr. Alfred Joseph was charged with criminal abortion in her death.
Madeline's and Joyce's abortions were typical of pre-legalization abortions in that they were performed by physicians.
Virginia Hopkins Watson had been on a record-setting relay swimming team with Esther Williams in 1939, and had herself set the world's fifty-meter record in 1938. Virginia was 32 years old and pursuing a Hollywood career when she became pregnant in 1954. Deciding that a baby would hurt her career, Virginia arranged to have an abortion on November 18. Her husband learned of the pregnancy and the abortion a few hours before Virginia's death from peritonitis at General Hospital in Los Angeles, California.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Joyce Chorney, age 25, died Wednesday, November 18, 1953. An autopsy was performed at Bellevue Hospital. It showed that she had died of an induced abortion. Fifty-four-year-old Dr. Alfred Joseph was charged with criminal abortion in her death.
Madeline's and Joyce's abortions were typical of pre-legalization abortions in that they were performed by physicians.
Virginia Hopkins Watson had been on a record-setting relay swimming team with Esther Williams in 1939, and had herself set the world's fifty-meter record in 1938. Virginia was 32 years old and pursuing a Hollywood career when she became pregnant in 1954. Deciding that a baby would hurt her career, Virginia arranged to have an abortion on November 18. Her husband learned of the pregnancy and the abortion a few hours before Virginia's death from peritonitis at General Hospital in Los Angeles, California.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Monday, November 17, 2008
A mystery solved -- and more uncovered
I had long suspected that Dr. Lucy Hagenow, back-alley butcher of early 20th Century Chicago, was also Louise Hagenow, sometimes identified as a midwife. Both were held responsible for maternal deaths from criminal abortions.
This past weekend I went onto Westlaw and looked up Dr. Hagenow. I found the appeal of her conviction for the 1907 criminal abortion death of Annie Horvatich (who I had not previously known about). I verified that Lucy Hagenow was a doctor, also known as a midwife (as was common for female obstetricians), and that she operated as Louise Hagenow.
I also found out that she had another alias -- Dr. Ida Von Schultz -- and that she was responsible for two other abortion deaths I'd not known of: May Putnam in 1905, and Hannah Carlson, whose death clearly predated the trial for Annie's death, since Hagenow admitted complicity in Hannah's death on the witness stand. Leslie Reagan's "When Abortion Was a Crime" indicates that Hagenow was responsible for patient deaths in 1896, 1899, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1926. I have all the years accounted for except 1896, so I'm guessing that this is the year Hannah died.
This makes Lucy the "Fast Eddie" of her day, linked to the deaths of:
1896: Hannah Carlson (date yet unverfied)
1899: Marie Hecht
1905: May Putnam
1906: Lola Madison
1907: Annie Horvatich
1925: Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, and Elizabeth Welter
and
1926: Mary Moorehead
Of course, we have to keep in mind that unlike Fast Eddie Allred, Dr. Hagenow didn't have access to blood transfusions, antibiotics, or other miracles of modern medicine which we take for granted -- and which leave Dr. Allred with very little excuse for his dead patients.
Still, that leaves the mystery of how Dr. Hagenow was able to produce such carnage when she should have been behind bars.
The gaps in deaths between 1899 and 1905 and between 1907 and 1925 might reflect periods of incarceration. If so, when Lucy was released she went to work at a fevered pace, perhaps to make up for revenues lost while she was locked up.
I would be very grateful if anybody in Chicago would be willing to undertake some research to look into these mysteries.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
This past weekend I went onto Westlaw and looked up Dr. Hagenow. I found the appeal of her conviction for the 1907 criminal abortion death of Annie Horvatich (who I had not previously known about). I verified that Lucy Hagenow was a doctor, also known as a midwife (as was common for female obstetricians), and that she operated as Louise Hagenow.
I also found out that she had another alias -- Dr. Ida Von Schultz -- and that she was responsible for two other abortion deaths I'd not known of: May Putnam in 1905, and Hannah Carlson, whose death clearly predated the trial for Annie's death, since Hagenow admitted complicity in Hannah's death on the witness stand. Leslie Reagan's "When Abortion Was a Crime" indicates that Hagenow was responsible for patient deaths in 1896, 1899, 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1926. I have all the years accounted for except 1896, so I'm guessing that this is the year Hannah died.
This makes Lucy the "Fast Eddie" of her day, linked to the deaths of:
and
Of course, we have to keep in mind that unlike Fast Eddie Allred, Dr. Hagenow didn't have access to blood transfusions, antibiotics, or other miracles of modern medicine which we take for granted -- and which leave Dr. Allred with very little excuse for his dead patients.
Still, that leaves the mystery of how Dr. Hagenow was able to produce such carnage when she should have been behind bars.
The gaps in deaths between 1899 and 1905 and between 1907 and 1925 might reflect periods of incarceration. If so, when Lucy was released she went to work at a fevered pace, perhaps to make up for revenues lost while she was locked up.
I would be very grateful if anybody in Chicago would be willing to undertake some research to look into these mysteries.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Victory in Iraq: Celebrate our troops on November 22
Read about it here.
Does this look like war to you?
Or this?
Our servicemembers deserve a huge celebration, one they'll never get from the MSM or the politicians. They'll have to get it from us.
Yes, there's still violence in Iraq. But it took a lot of Japanese warriors a long time to catch on to the fact that WWII was over. We ought not to let a bunch of loosely-organized murdering creeps steal our troops' thunder.
Go to Zombietime to get graphics and pictures, and to commit to joining the celebration.
1935: Oklahoma abortion proves fatal
On November 17, 1935, Georgia Marie McGill, 21-year-old daughter of oil company superintendent George McGill, died from an apparent criminal abortion in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Marie's father identified Dr. W. R. Mitchell as the perpetrator. Mitchell was already a reputed abortionist, and police had already gotten many complaints about him prior to Marie's death. Mitchell was arrested and tried but the case ended with a hung jury. After the trial, Mitchell resumed his abortion business and was arrested again for his practice.
Marie's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Marie's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Here's a guy who would have supported Obama
The first man sentenced to die in Illinois's electric chair was not a typical death row inmate: he was a physician whose patient died from complications of an illegal abortion. Reporters covering the case in Chicago contended that Dr. Amante (or Amenti) Rongetti was the first doctor in the United States ever sentenced to die over a patient's abortion death.
Rongetti's death sentence was handed down by a Chicago jury of 11 married men and one widower on March 1, 1928, after three hours of deliberation. Rongetti had been convicted of murder in the abortion death of 19-year-old Loretta Enders. Loretta died on November 16, 1927. Rongetti's scheduled execution date was to be April 13, 1928.
Rongetti reportedly stood stunned and quiet as the sentence was read, but his wife became hysterical, pushing her way through the courtroom crowd crying, "Let me out."
Many factors disclosed in court helped to seal the jury's verdict:
The baby had been born alive; Rongetti left it unattended to die, then threw the body in the furnace. (Rongetti faced an additional charge of manslaughter in the death of the baby.)
After Loretta had developed sepsis (blood poisoning) from the abortion, Rongetti refused to provide follow-up care, including possibly life-saving additional surgery, because she had no money to pay him.
Not only did Rongetti refuse to provide the care himself, but he prevented Loretta from going elsewhere for fear his practice would be exposed.
Rongetti filed a falsified death certificate, claiming that Loretta had died of heart disease.
Rongetti refused to summon a priest to perform last rites for Loretta, again fearing exposure of his illegal practices.
Rongetti's defense claimed that Loretta came to him at his Ashland Boulevard Hospital after having undergone an illegal abortion elsewhere -- a claim that fell flat, considering the lack of proper aftercare.
Witnesses in the case said that they recieved threats to try to intimidate them.
After the sentence was handed down, Rongetti's attorney, Scott Stewart, immediately filed motion for a new trial. Stuart's bid for a new trial was successful, and the very next year, Rongetti was at large to be implicated in the criminal abortion death of Elizabeth Palumbo, who died May 23 after an abortion performed May 10.
He was tried again for Loretta's death in December of 1929. Rongetti found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to Joliet.
Loretta's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Rongetti's death sentence was handed down by a Chicago jury of 11 married men and one widower on March 1, 1928, after three hours of deliberation. Rongetti had been convicted of murder in the abortion death of 19-year-old Loretta Enders. Loretta died on November 16, 1927. Rongetti's scheduled execution date was to be April 13, 1928.
Rongetti reportedly stood stunned and quiet as the sentence was read, but his wife became hysterical, pushing her way through the courtroom crowd crying, "Let me out."
Many factors disclosed in court helped to seal the jury's verdict:
Witnesses in the case said that they recieved threats to try to intimidate them.
After the sentence was handed down, Rongetti's attorney, Scott Stewart, immediately filed motion for a new trial. Stuart's bid for a new trial was successful, and the very next year, Rongetti was at large to be implicated in the criminal abortion death of Elizabeth Palumbo, who died May 23 after an abortion performed May 10.
He was tried again for Loretta's death in December of 1929. Rongetti found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to Joliet.
Loretta's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Safe and Lethal in 2002
A woman identified as "Patient A" (I'll call her "Adelle"), was 26 years old and had a history of anemia and sickle cell disease. She sought a safe, legal abortion at Kim called her office "Landmark Women's Center" in Fairfax, Virginia. Though the place appeared to be a clinic, which would be inspected by the state, it was just the private office of Dr. Mi Yong Kim.
Kim did not order proper lab studies, document an appropriate history, or perform a proper exam on Adelle before performing thel abortion on her on November 16, 2002. Kim administered 25 mg of Versed to Adelle, in response to her reports of pain, over a 10-minute period, without giving the medicine time to take effect.
Kim told the medical board that she did not give Adelle any analgesia for pain because she gives enough Versed to cause amnesia so that the patient can't remember the pain. The board noted that Kim lacked judgment and knowledge of intravenous conscious sedation and that she was not fit to supervise a CRNA.
At the end of the abortion, Kim noted that Adelle's pulse oximeter reading was only 70%, an alarming finding. Kim thought she found a pulse, did not assess whether or not Adelle was breathing, and simply ordered her staff to give Adelle oxygen by mask and call 911.
Kim administered Romazicon to reverse the effects of the Versed, but did not notice that Adelle had gone into cardiac arrest. As such, Kim made no effort to resuscitate her. The ambulance crew arrived and transported Adelle to the hospital, where she was declared dead from possible air embolism.
The medical board noted that Kim was not certified in Advanced Cardiopulmonary Life Support, nor was she or anybody else on her staff qualified to perform an intubation or use crash cart equipment. Kim did not document the operative report for Adelle. Kim told the board that the police had told her not to make any further notes in her file.
The board did not suspend or yank Kim's license, instead noting that she was making improvements in her quality of care. She was instead placed under stipulations regarding her use of anesthesia in her office and her record-keeping.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Kim did not order proper lab studies, document an appropriate history, or perform a proper exam on Adelle before performing thel abortion on her on November 16, 2002. Kim administered 25 mg of Versed to Adelle, in response to her reports of pain, over a 10-minute period, without giving the medicine time to take effect.
Kim told the medical board that she did not give Adelle any analgesia for pain because she gives enough Versed to cause amnesia so that the patient can't remember the pain. The board noted that Kim lacked judgment and knowledge of intravenous conscious sedation and that she was not fit to supervise a CRNA.
At the end of the abortion, Kim noted that Adelle's pulse oximeter reading was only 70%, an alarming finding. Kim thought she found a pulse, did not assess whether or not Adelle was breathing, and simply ordered her staff to give Adelle oxygen by mask and call 911.
Kim administered Romazicon to reverse the effects of the Versed, but did not notice that Adelle had gone into cardiac arrest. As such, Kim made no effort to resuscitate her. The ambulance crew arrived and transported Adelle to the hospital, where she was declared dead from possible air embolism.
The medical board noted that Kim was not certified in Advanced Cardiopulmonary Life Support, nor was she or anybody else on her staff qualified to perform an intubation or use crash cart equipment. Kim did not document the operative report for Adelle. Kim told the board that the police had told her not to make any further notes in her file.
The board did not suspend or yank Kim's license, instead noting that she was making improvements in her quality of care. She was instead placed under stipulations regarding her use of anesthesia in her office and her record-keeping.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
1901: Hospital abortion kills Kansas woman
On November 15, 1901, 22-year-old Irma Brown of Garden City, Kansas, died at County Hospital from complications of an abortion performed there that day. Dr. Robert E. Gray was arrested November 19 and held without bail by Coroner's Jury. On March 26, 1902, Gray was acquitted by a jury. The source does not say why.
Irma's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Irma's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Obama's secret weapon
I have a great idea. If they're this convinced that it works, let's pack them all off to Afghanistan and let them have a go at it.
At least the one in the sleeveless blouse shaved her pits. Which is something I thought hippies didn't do. I guess they capitulated on the shaving issue in order to devote more energy to practicing their song.
What is it with Lefties and the two-pronged approach of singing folk songs and getting naked? (Disgusting graphic images; not recommended for people with weak stomachs.)
Personally, I think it's two sides of the "Look at MEEEEE!" coin.
Let's see:
1. Constantly taking clothes off.
2. Constantly wanting everybody else to stop what they're doing and watch silly antics.
3. Perpetual whining about fairness.
Yup. Toddlers.
HT: Papa Mike's Blog
At least the one in the sleeveless blouse shaved her pits. Which is something I thought hippies didn't do. I guess they capitulated on the shaving issue in order to devote more energy to practicing their song.
What is it with Lefties and the two-pronged approach of singing folk songs and getting naked? (Disgusting graphic images; not recommended for people with weak stomachs.)
Personally, I think it's two sides of the "Look at MEEEEE!" coin.
Let's see:
1. Constantly taking clothes off.
2. Constantly wanting everybody else to stop what they're doing and watch silly antics.
3. Perpetual whining about fairness.
Yup. Toddlers.
HT: Papa Mike's Blog
Friday, November 14, 2008
Searches: Louisville and suicide
Louisville, KY, abortion clinics:
About those NAF clinics in Kentucky...: One of them hired a security chief who used the clinic as a rape site. The clinic in question, EMW, is a National Abortion Federation member facility.
EMS's abortionist also botched an abortion on a 16-year-old girl, in spite of her mother's efforts to stop the abortion.
Abortion suicide:
There is an increased risk of suicide after abortion, as compared to women who had not been pregnant, women who had miscarried, and women who had given birth. In fact, all forms of violent death are more common in post-abortion women.
14-year-old Sandra Kaiser committed suicide by throwing herself into traffic after a secret abortion.
Stacy Zallie took her own life after her abortion.
Arlin della Cruz was found hanging in the woods near her home after her abortion, with a suicide note saying she wanted to be with her baby.
Carol Cunningham shut herself up in the garage with the car running after her abortion.
"Sandra" Roe killed herself after her abortion; the clinic had failed to tell her that tests after the abortion had shown that she hadn't actually been pregnant.
Laura Grunas shot her baby's father dead before turning her gun on herself.
"Haley Mason" opened her diary to the entry about her abortion and took an overdose.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
About those NAF clinics in Kentucky...: One of them hired a security chief who used the clinic as a rape site. The clinic in question, EMW, is a National Abortion Federation member facility.
EMS's abortionist also botched an abortion on a 16-year-old girl, in spite of her mother's efforts to stop the abortion.
Abortion suicide:
There is an increased risk of suicide after abortion, as compared to women who had not been pregnant, women who had miscarried, and women who had given birth. In fact, all forms of violent death are more common in post-abortion women.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
SSDDecade
On November 14, 1928, 21-year-old Eunice McElroy died in Chicago from complications of a criminal abortion. Dr. Thomas J. Ney was indicted by a grand jury for felony murder in Eunice's death. Eunice's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Forty-four years later, on November 14, 1972, 21-year-old Twila Coulter died in a California hospital. Twila had traveled from her home in Colorado to California for a safe, legal abortion. Twila was injected with saline on November 13, then expelled the dead fetus and the placenta the following day. Twila had no blood pressure and was bleeding from IV sites. She was given oxygen and three units of blood and transferred to a fully-equipped hospital. Upon arrival, Twila was comatose and bleeding heavily. Doctors removed some retained pregnancy tissue and sutured numerous uterine injuries, but were unable to address her clotting problems. Twila died of cerebral hemorrhage. Despite the fact that her doctor had chosen an antiquated, dangerous abortion method, nobody was prosecuted in Twila's death. After all, her abortion was legal. There was no longer any call to hold anyone accountable for her death.
I fail to see any improvement. Twila is just as dead as Eunice. And I will never understand the mentality of looking at a tragic death like Eunice McElroy's and responding with "We need to stop punishing the guys who do things like this."
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Forty-four years later, on November 14, 1972, 21-year-old Twila Coulter died in a California hospital. Twila had traveled from her home in Colorado to California for a safe, legal abortion. Twila was injected with saline on November 13, then expelled the dead fetus and the placenta the following day. Twila had no blood pressure and was bleeding from IV sites. She was given oxygen and three units of blood and transferred to a fully-equipped hospital. Upon arrival, Twila was comatose and bleeding heavily. Doctors removed some retained pregnancy tissue and sutured numerous uterine injuries, but were unable to address her clotting problems. Twila died of cerebral hemorrhage. Despite the fact that her doctor had chosen an antiquated, dangerous abortion method, nobody was prosecuted in Twila's death. After all, her abortion was legal. There was no longer any call to hold anyone accountable for her death.
I fail to see any improvement. Twila is just as dead as Eunice. And I will never understand the mentality of looking at a tragic death like Eunice McElroy's and responding with "We need to stop punishing the guys who do things like this."
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Two searches: Reformed abortion workers, and the 1970s
First, "ex abortion workers clinic"
I have a selection of links to the conversion stories of abortion workers here. The blogosphere is also buzzing recently with this dream conversion. I'd like suggestions for more stories to add.
UPDATE: RedDog provided a link to this YouTube video of a converted abortionist from South Dakota telling her story:
Then, "abortion stories 1970"
The biggest news of 1970 was New York's historic vote legalizing abortion on demand through 24 weeks, with no restrictions. The freedom New York granted abortionists brought in carpetbaggers from all over the United States. Many of these abortionists were former "back alley butchers" who fled their home states to enjoy the freedom from prosecution they would find in New York. The carpetbagging abortionists attracted to New York included such unsavory characters as Harvey Karman and Jesse Ketchum.
Some of the appalling practices found in New York in the wake of the celebrated new abortion freedom included injecting women with saline and sending them home to abort -- or die. Saline was dangerous enough when used in a hospital setting, with intense medical supervision. To do it on an outpatient basis was to play Russian Roulette with women's lives.
Pardon me for not considering this cause to celebrate.
Meanwhile, women were continuing to die in California, where abortion laws had also been loosened up, though not yet to the extent New York had embraced.
Of course, abortion enthusiasts will claim that, well, all surgery has risks, and probably more women would have died from abortions had they remained illegal. But consider this: In 1921, there were 144 abortion deaths in New York City (that includes miscarriages as well as induced abortions). By 1951 that number had fallen to 15. Abortion mortality was plummeting. Public health measures to limit abortion carnage were working -- without taking the drastic step of legalization.
Here are those beneficiaries of abortion largess I was able to identify for 1970:
Denise Holmes, a 24-year-old Australian woman living in Texas, decided to undergo a safe and legal abortion at Avalon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on her way home for Christmas of 1970.
Sara Lint, a 22-year-old coed, submitted to a safe and legal abortion at San Vicente Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on August 11, 1970.
Sharon Margrove died following a safe and legal abortion in Los Angeles County, California.
Katherine Morse was one customer of a Texas company offering abortion tourism packages to California.
Maria Ortega traveled from her home in Massahusetts for a safe and legal abortion by Dr. Armida Zepeta in her New York office on October 10, 1970.
"Amanda" Roe was 19 years old when she traveled from Indiana to New York for a legal abortion in 1970.
"Alice" Roe was 31 years old when she underwent a 14-week saline abortion in New York City.
"Judy" Roe was a 42-year-old mother of four from upstate New York when she chose safe and legal abortion in 1970.
"Kimberly" Roe was 25 years old and 18 weeks pregnant when she underwent an abortion in New York City on December 23, 1970.
"Lori" Roe was 17 years old and 16 weeks pregnnat when she was admitted to a Maryland hospital for a saline abortion between July and December of 1970.
"Sheryl" Roe was in her first trimester of pregnancy when she underwent her fatal abortion on July 11, 1970.
F. S. died in 1970 from complications of a safe, legal abortion that she had been subjected to the year before.
I have a selection of links to the conversion stories of abortion workers here. The blogosphere is also buzzing recently with this dream conversion. I'd like suggestions for more stories to add.
UPDATE: RedDog provided a link to this YouTube video of a converted abortionist from South Dakota telling her story:
Then, "abortion stories 1970"
The biggest news of 1970 was New York's historic vote legalizing abortion on demand through 24 weeks, with no restrictions. The freedom New York granted abortionists brought in carpetbaggers from all over the United States. Many of these abortionists were former "back alley butchers" who fled their home states to enjoy the freedom from prosecution they would find in New York. The carpetbagging abortionists attracted to New York included such unsavory characters as Harvey Karman and Jesse Ketchum.
Some of the appalling practices found in New York in the wake of the celebrated new abortion freedom included injecting women with saline and sending them home to abort -- or die. Saline was dangerous enough when used in a hospital setting, with intense medical supervision. To do it on an outpatient basis was to play Russian Roulette with women's lives.
Pardon me for not considering this cause to celebrate.
Meanwhile, women were continuing to die in California, where abortion laws had also been loosened up, though not yet to the extent New York had embraced.
Of course, abortion enthusiasts will claim that, well, all surgery has risks, and probably more women would have died from abortions had they remained illegal. But consider this: In 1921, there were 144 abortion deaths in New York City (that includes miscarriages as well as induced abortions). By 1951 that number had fallen to 15. Abortion mortality was plummeting. Public health measures to limit abortion carnage were working -- without taking the drastic step of legalization.
Here are those beneficiaries of abortion largess I was able to identify for 1970:
Responding to Jenn's complaints about Teen Abortion Stories
Jenn took great umbrage at my post, Teen Abortion Stories, in which I gave 13 examples of fatal abortions and 2 examples of non-fatal abortions that nevertheless were devastating to the teens and their families.
I will give you Jenn's response in its entirety, then respond point by point.
Jenn,
I'm sorry but these stories are absurd.
I'd like to see you say that to the families and friends of these girls.
You do realize that there is a risk in terms of EVERYTHING you do right?
I never said there wasn't.
So before posting stories about girls who stopped breathing or choked, etc, make sure it's because of the actual abortion and not the anesthesia.
It's not as if they'd have gratiutiously undergone the anesthesia just for kicks had they not been having the abortions, Jenn. It is the responsiblity of the abortionist to get the patient through all aspects of the procedure safely, is it not?
These girls could have just as easily died having their tonsils out because of the anesthesia.
But they weren't having their tonsils out, were they? They're not tonsillectomy deaths, they're abortion deaths.
If you are 7-8weeks along and use all of the necessary precautions, your risk of complications is extremely rare, just be smart!
Sounds like you're saying that these girls were stupid and therefore it's somehow okay that they died. I'm thinking that's not what you meant. Can you clarify?
And, obviously people who have extreme mental health issues and mental retardation SHOULD NOT be going through such a procedure. They do not have the mental capacity to fathom the results of this procedure.
It's nice to find some agreement!
However, someone who goes in with a set mind with no guilt, will come out emotionally fine after the procedure. It's all about precautions!
First of all, how are we supposed to measure the emotional well-being of the DEAD, Jenn? Second of all, what precautions is the girl supposed to take so that she doesn't end up injured or dead? Third, pretty much everybody who approaches any act "with a set mind of no guilt" sails through emotionally unscathed, and yes that includes some pretty drastic acts. We have a word for people with no capacity for guilt. It's psychopath. And I sincerely doubt that most girls climbing on the abortion table are psychopaths who can kill without guilt. Though I've had a lot of people argue with me about that.
These kinds of websites are uninformative, wrong, and COMPLETELY BIASED.
Uninformative? Did you know about these deaths before you came here? If not, then it turns out this site was very informative indeed.
Wrong? Do you mean wrong as in factually wrong? If so, please correct me. I have had people point out errors and I have gratefully corrected them. Or do you mean morally wrong, as in you believe it's evil to give people facts? Please clarify.
Biased? I've never denied that. I think that women and girls deserve better than to have some masked stranger stick sharp things inside them to kill their babies, sometimes injuring or killing the mother in the process. You're allowed to have a beef with that bias if you like.
Check the facts, abortion is very safe, one of the safest procedures in the country!
I have spent over a quarter of a century checking my facts. How much time and effort have you put into this? Did you read and abstract thousands of court records, medical board documents, health inspections, medical journal articles, and so forth? Did you spend six months contacting every state health department and vital records office to learn how abortion morbidity and mortality data are or aren't collected? Please compare your qualifications with mine.
Having put all this effort into it, I can tell you that we do not know the real risks of injury or death from abortion. If you are willing to listen, I can go into quite a bit of detail about what I have learned in 25 years of studying this subject.
Many girls survive this and move on with their lives just fine!
I never said they didn't. But likewise many teenagers survive and move on with their lives just fine after car surfing, playing chicken with trains, driving carelessly, experimenting with drugs, and so on. Do we then just look at those that survive and thrive, and write off those who suffer the negative consequences as being irrelevant?
I will give you Jenn's response in its entirety, then respond point by point.
I'm sorry but these stories are absurd. You do realize that there is a risk in terms of EVERYTHING you do right? And that when you don't follow the recommended procedures, like so many of these cases didn't, chances of something going wrong increases immensely? All you also know that anesthesia in itself has a lot of risks, especially for those who have never used it. So before posting stories about girls who stopped breathing or choked, etc, make sure it's because of the actual abortion and not the anesthesia. These girls could have just as easily died having their tonsils out because of the anesthesia. Also, there is obviously an increased risk for those that are 6MONTHS pregnant! If you are 7-8weeks along and use all of the necessary precautions, your risk of complications is extremely rare, just be smart! And, obviously people who have extreme mental health issues and mental retardation SHOULD NOT be going through such a procedure. They do not have the mental capacity to fathom the results of this procedure. However, someone who goes in with a set mind with no guilt, will come out emotionally fine after the procedure. It's all about precautions!
These kinds of websites are uninformative, wrong, and COMPLETELY BIASED. Check the facts, abortion is very safe, one of the safest procedures in the country! Many girls survive this and move on with their lives just fine!
Jenn,
I'm sorry but these stories are absurd.
I'd like to see you say that to the families and friends of these girls.
You do realize that there is a risk in terms of EVERYTHING you do right?
I never said there wasn't.
So before posting stories about girls who stopped breathing or choked, etc, make sure it's because of the actual abortion and not the anesthesia.
It's not as if they'd have gratiutiously undergone the anesthesia just for kicks had they not been having the abortions, Jenn. It is the responsiblity of the abortionist to get the patient through all aspects of the procedure safely, is it not?
These girls could have just as easily died having their tonsils out because of the anesthesia.
But they weren't having their tonsils out, were they? They're not tonsillectomy deaths, they're abortion deaths.
If you are 7-8weeks along and use all of the necessary precautions, your risk of complications is extremely rare, just be smart!
Sounds like you're saying that these girls were stupid and therefore it's somehow okay that they died. I'm thinking that's not what you meant. Can you clarify?
And, obviously people who have extreme mental health issues and mental retardation SHOULD NOT be going through such a procedure. They do not have the mental capacity to fathom the results of this procedure.
It's nice to find some agreement!
However, someone who goes in with a set mind with no guilt, will come out emotionally fine after the procedure. It's all about precautions!
First of all, how are we supposed to measure the emotional well-being of the DEAD, Jenn? Second of all, what precautions is the girl supposed to take so that she doesn't end up injured or dead? Third, pretty much everybody who approaches any act "with a set mind of no guilt" sails through emotionally unscathed, and yes that includes some pretty drastic acts. We have a word for people with no capacity for guilt. It's psychopath. And I sincerely doubt that most girls climbing on the abortion table are psychopaths who can kill without guilt. Though I've had a lot of people argue with me about that.
These kinds of websites are uninformative, wrong, and COMPLETELY BIASED.
Uninformative? Did you know about these deaths before you came here? If not, then it turns out this site was very informative indeed.
Wrong? Do you mean wrong as in factually wrong? If so, please correct me. I have had people point out errors and I have gratefully corrected them. Or do you mean morally wrong, as in you believe it's evil to give people facts? Please clarify.
Biased? I've never denied that. I think that women and girls deserve better than to have some masked stranger stick sharp things inside them to kill their babies, sometimes injuring or killing the mother in the process. You're allowed to have a beef with that bias if you like.
Check the facts, abortion is very safe, one of the safest procedures in the country!
I have spent over a quarter of a century checking my facts. How much time and effort have you put into this? Did you read and abstract thousands of court records, medical board documents, health inspections, medical journal articles, and so forth? Did you spend six months contacting every state health department and vital records office to learn how abortion morbidity and mortality data are or aren't collected? Please compare your qualifications with mine.
Having put all this effort into it, I can tell you that we do not know the real risks of injury or death from abortion. If you are willing to listen, I can go into quite a bit of detail about what I have learned in 25 years of studying this subject.
Many girls survive this and move on with their lives just fine!
I never said they didn't. But likewise many teenagers survive and move on with their lives just fine after car surfing, playing chicken with trains, driving carelessly, experimenting with drugs, and so on. Do we then just look at those that survive and thrive, and write off those who suffer the negative consequences as being irrelevant?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Conversion by a dream
Another 'champion of abortion' becomes defender of life: the story of Sotjan Adasevic -- converted by a dream of a saint and the children he'd killed
Paranoia, far-sightedness, or something in between?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
Ex-Hitler youth's warning to America
I don't know if it's scary or reassuring that this has been going on for so long. It can be scary if things are coming to a head. It can be reassuring in that they've not been used against us yet, and might not in our lifetime.
Ah, but the government wouldn't use military tactics against CIVILIANS!
How about these drug raids?
I'm wondering now if the "war on drugs" was in part intended to get us used to the use of military tactics against civilians.
Remember this?
And this?
Oh, no! Our government would never use military equipment and tactics on civilians!
And if you believe that, you'll believe anything.
Ex-Hitler youth's warning to America
I don't know if it's scary or reassuring that this has been going on for so long. It can be scary if things are coming to a head. It can be reassuring in that they've not been used against us yet, and might not in our lifetime.
Ah, but the government wouldn't use military tactics against CIVILIANS!
How about these drug raids?
I'm wondering now if the "war on drugs" was in part intended to get us used to the use of military tactics against civilians.
Remember this?
And this?
Oh, no! Our government would never use military equipment and tactics on civilians!
And if you believe that, you'll believe anything.
Time to sue the union
Union fights for Pa. bus driver who hit pedestrian
A bus driver in Erie struck and killed a cyclist. He had already hit a pedestrian in the past. So the Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority fired him.
The union fought the firing, getting the guy his job back.
So he struck and injured a 16-year-old girl.
If I was this girl's family I'd be suing that union.
A bus driver in Erie struck and killed a cyclist. He had already hit a pedestrian in the past. So the Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority fired him.
The union fought the firing, getting the guy his job back.
So he struck and injured a 16-year-old girl.
If I was this girl's family I'd be suing that union.
A 1926 abortion death and a research challenge
On November 13, 1926, 25-year-old Mary Moorehead died from a criminal abortion in the Chicago office of Dr. Lucy Hagenow. Hagenow was arrested November 13. She was sentenced to 14 years at Joliet Penitentiary, but was able to get her conviction overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court.
There were a number of deaths in Chicago attributed to either a Lucy Hagenow or a Louise Hagenow. The deaths include:
Lottie Lowy
Bridget Masterson
Nina H. Pierce
Jean Cohen
Elizabeth Welter
Marie Hicht
Lola Madison
I find it hard to believe that two Hagenow women with such similar names could have been plying the abortion trade together in Chicago. I'm wondering if Lucy and Lousie Hagenow were the same woman, though it is possible that they were sisters, or mother and daughter, or aunt and niece, or cousins. I have been unable to find out, because I don't have access to Chicago newspaper archives of the time in question.
Can anybody help me with this?
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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There were a number of deaths in Chicago attributed to either a Lucy Hagenow or a Louise Hagenow. The deaths include:
I find it hard to believe that two Hagenow women with such similar names could have been plying the abortion trade together in Chicago. I'm wondering if Lucy and Lousie Hagenow were the same woman, though it is possible that they were sisters, or mother and daughter, or aunt and niece, or cousins. I have been unable to find out, because I don't have access to Chicago newspaper archives of the time in question.
Can anybody help me with this?
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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A telling omission
Prochoicers, follow this carefully. I'm talking about a particular group of people, a subset of prochoicers. A set that I hope you are not a part of. So don't think I'm tarring everybody with this brush. I'm just making what I think is a very disturbing observation.
I was looking for a picture of Dr. Robert Spencer, "The Angel of Ashland", revered criminal abortionist of rural Pennsylvania. I found DEAR DOCTOR SPENCER: Abortion in a Small Town
The blurb gives Spencer's career in a nutshell. And toward the end, it notes:
They're forgetting somebody. Somebody who was the reason for one of those trials. Somebody who died on the table during one of Dr. Spencer's holy abortions. Somebody who mattered. Somebody who had a name: Mary Davies.
If it's all about the women, why was Mary not even worth mentioning?
It's an omission abortion advocates make consistently.
Obituaries for prochoice icon Harvey Karman gush about him. They never make any mention of Joyce Johnson, the woman he killed in 1955 by trying to perform an abortion on her with a nutcracker in a motel room. If it's all about the woman, why is Joyce forgotten?
Likewise, Milan Vuitch gets a hagiographic obituary. If it's really all about the women, why are Wilma Harris and Georgianna English beneath everybody's notice?
Ditto for Benjamin Munson. He is lauded. Linda Padfield and Yvonne Mesteth slide by under the radar.
Abortion supporters' stories about grandfatherly old William Jennings Bryan Henrie, abortionist, do mention that a woman died, but only to lament that poor Doc Henrie got picked on about it. They never mention her name. I finally tracked it down: Jolene Griffith. If it's all about the woman, where does Jolene fit in?
Mary Davies. Joyce Johnson. Wilma Harris. Georgianna English. Linda Padfield. Yvonne Mesteth. Jolene Griffith. All women. Only one of whom even rates a footnote among the self-proclaimed champions of women. And she doesn't even, in their estimation, deserve a name.
I was looking for a picture of Dr. Robert Spencer, "The Angel of Ashland", revered criminal abortionist of rural Pennsylvania. I found DEAR DOCTOR SPENCER: Abortion in a Small Town
The blurb gives Spencer's career in a nutshell. And toward the end, it notes:
The program includes interviews from those who remember Dr. Spencer, including Ashland residents (his wife, his lawyer, and many of his friends); women who traveled in search of his safe care; and a juror who served at one of his trials and helped to acquit him, even though she opposes abortion.
They're forgetting somebody. Somebody who was the reason for one of those trials. Somebody who died on the table during one of Dr. Spencer's holy abortions. Somebody who mattered. Somebody who had a name: Mary Davies.
If it's all about the women, why was Mary not even worth mentioning?
It's an omission abortion advocates make consistently.
Obituaries for prochoice icon Harvey Karman gush about him. They never make any mention of Joyce Johnson, the woman he killed in 1955 by trying to perform an abortion on her with a nutcracker in a motel room. If it's all about the woman, why is Joyce forgotten?
Likewise, Milan Vuitch gets a hagiographic obituary. If it's really all about the women, why are Wilma Harris and Georgianna English beneath everybody's notice?
Ditto for Benjamin Munson. He is lauded. Linda Padfield and Yvonne Mesteth slide by under the radar.
Abortion supporters' stories about grandfatherly old William Jennings Bryan Henrie, abortionist, do mention that a woman died, but only to lament that poor Doc Henrie got picked on about it. They never mention her name. I finally tracked it down: Jolene Griffith. If it's all about the woman, where does Jolene fit in?
Mary Davies. Joyce Johnson. Wilma Harris. Georgianna English. Linda Padfield. Yvonne Mesteth. Jolene Griffith. All women. Only one of whom even rates a footnote among the self-proclaimed champions of women. And she doesn't even, in their estimation, deserve a name.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Hermit emerges from cave
Some poor soul stumbled onto my blog wanting to know WHICH STATES ALLOW ABORTIONS!
No wonder we had no luck getting the point across with Obama and the BAIPA. Some of our fellow citizens don't even know abortion is LEGAL.
No wonder we had no luck getting the point across with Obama and the BAIPA. Some of our fellow citizens don't even know abortion is LEGAL.
Dave Barry on the Election
Dave Barry: And the winner is . . . the man with the martini
Now go read the rest!
In a similar but sillier vein, The campaign as a RPG campaign:
So, if you're into RPGs, go read the rest. If you don't go RPGs, you won't get it.
And what if the election had taken place in World of Warcraft?
No surprise that people with nothing better to do with their time than play video games online all day went for Obama. McCain supporters have jobs.
In analyzing the results of Tuesday's historic election, the question we must ask ourselves, first and foremost, is: what the heck were the results of Tuesday's historic election?
I personally don't know. The Miami Herald made me send in this analysis before the election was actually over, so that it could be printed in a timely manner. This is part of the newspaper industry's crafty plan to defeat this ''Internet'' thing that has the youngsters so excited.
Now go read the rest!
In a similar but sillier vein, The campaign as a RPG campaign:
GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do?
OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.
MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I'm a level 72 ranger and he's only a level 8 paladin.
OBAMA: Well, if you'd bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you...
MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.
So, if you're into RPGs, go read the rest. If you don't go RPGs, you won't get it.
And what if the election had taken place in World of Warcraft?
No surprise that people with nothing better to do with their time than play video games online all day went for Obama. McCain supporters have jobs.
Laura Hope Smith videos
While searching for "videos on abortion gone bad" I found that there are many videos available about Laura Hope Smith, who died September of 2007 on a Massachusetts abortion table. Dr. Rapin Osathanondh (Oh-SITH-a-non) hadn't had a trained anesthetist on staff, just a receptionist "hand-holder", to monitor Laura while she was under general anesthesia.
Here is a photo tribute to Laura by her mother, Eileen:
Here is the Life Matters episode about Laura's death, three months after she died. It's an interview with Laura's mother, Eileen.
In Part 2 Eileen explains, among other things, how the facility wasn't a clinic, just a doctor's office, and thus was not subject to regulations. She also discusses how abortion deaths go unreported.
Facing Life Head On interviews Laura's parents. It includes audio of the 911 call made after Laura had stopped breathing.
New coverage of Osathanondh's arraignment.
Here is a photo tribute to Laura by her mother, Eileen:
Here is the Life Matters episode about Laura's death, three months after she died. It's an interview with Laura's mother, Eileen.
In Part 2 Eileen explains, among other things, how the facility wasn't a clinic, just a doctor's office, and thus was not subject to regulations. She also discusses how abortion deaths go unreported.
Facing Life Head On interviews Laura's parents. It includes audio of the 911 call made after Laura had stopped breathing.
New coverage of Osathanondh's arraignment.
Search: 15-year-old dead from malpractice
I specialize in abortion malpractice, so those are the only cases I can give.
Gwendolyn Drummer died after her doctors chose an antiquated and dangerous abortion technique.
Denise Montoya suffered severe bleeding and died after a 25-week abortion.
Beverly Moore's parents were reassured that she would be just fine, a quarter hour before she died.
Sarah Niebel died after her abortionist left rotting tissue and a fetal bone in her uterus.
Tamiia Russell (pictured) died of sepsis after her abuser's sister arranged a secret abortion for her.
Deloris Smith was let unattended with her anesthesia drip running.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Tamiia Russell (pictured) died of sepsis after her abuser's sister arranged a secret abortion for her.For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Search: Warning signs after abortion
What are signs that all is not well after an abortion?
* Pain. This may be a sign of infection, injuries to internal organs, or undiagnosed ecopic pregnancy.
* Fever. This is a clear sign of infection and should not be ignored.
* Bleeding heavier than a period. This can be a sign of retained tissue or of internal injuries.
* Foul smell. This is a sign of infection or possible bowel injury.
* Blood in the urine. This is a sign of injury to the bladder or other organs of the urinary system.
* Passing tissue or fetal parts. This is a sign of incomplete abortion, which can cause excessive bleeding, infection, or fatal clotting disorders.
* Nausea. Can indicate continued pregnancy or damage to the bowels.
* Weakness, dizziness, fainting. Can be a sign of any number of problems.
* Still "feeling pregnant", or failure of periods to resume. Can be a sign of continued pregnancy -- perhaps an ectopic pregnancy.
If the abortion facility will not provide you with aftercare, go to the hospital or your usual doctor. If you have no insurance, contact local prolife groups, which have been known to pay the medical bills of abortion-injured women. Don't let the clinic's assurance that all is well dissuade you. Too many women have died because the clinics told them everything was normal:
Jennifer Suddeth: Clinic staff insisted that her bleeding was "normal".
Harvey Johnson told Shari Graham's boyfriend to put her in a hot bath when she was actually bleeding to death from a cervical laceration.
Sandra Milton's babysitter called the clinic, but they assured her that there was nothing wrong.
Brenda Vise was reassured that her symptoms were normal.
Christina Goesswein's boyfriend was reassured that there was no cause for concern.
* Pain. This may be a sign of infection, injuries to internal organs, or undiagnosed ecopic pregnancy.
* Fever. This is a clear sign of infection and should not be ignored.
* Bleeding heavier than a period. This can be a sign of retained tissue or of internal injuries.
* Foul smell. This is a sign of infection or possible bowel injury.
* Blood in the urine. This is a sign of injury to the bladder or other organs of the urinary system.
* Passing tissue or fetal parts. This is a sign of incomplete abortion, which can cause excessive bleeding, infection, or fatal clotting disorders.
* Nausea. Can indicate continued pregnancy or damage to the bowels.
* Weakness, dizziness, fainting. Can be a sign of any number of problems.
* Still "feeling pregnant", or failure of periods to resume. Can be a sign of continued pregnancy -- perhaps an ectopic pregnancy.
If the abortion facility will not provide you with aftercare, go to the hospital or your usual doctor. If you have no insurance, contact local prolife groups, which have been known to pay the medical bills of abortion-injured women. Don't let the clinic's assurance that all is well dissuade you. Too many women have died because the clinics told them everything was normal:
Searches: Abortions gone wrong
Somebody wanted "videos of abortions gone wrong".
There is Christi's Choice is about an abortion that destroyed an entire family. This is the abridged version of the story:
A young woman in New Jersey nearly died from a botched abortion:
I have a collection of videos here about the abortion death of Laura Hope Smith:
This video has poor sound quality. It is one of George Tiller's late-term abortion patients speaking from her bed where she lies hospitalized:
"Shop of Horrors" -- unlicensed doctors, at least one molested patient:
Though, really, all abortions are examples of something -- in society, in the woman's life -- gone terribly, terribly wrong.
There is Christi's Choice is about an abortion that destroyed an entire family. This is the abridged version of the story:
A young woman in New Jersey nearly died from a botched abortion:
I have a collection of videos here about the abortion death of Laura Hope Smith:
This video has poor sound quality. It is one of George Tiller's late-term abortion patients speaking from her bed where she lies hospitalized:
"Shop of Horrors" -- unlicensed doctors, at least one molested patient:
Though, really, all abortions are examples of something -- in society, in the woman's life -- gone terribly, terribly wrong.
1952: Abortion turns fatal for Illinois woman
On November 12, 1952, Isabell Cuda died, leaving behind a husband and a minor child. She had been ill since November 3, when she had gone to the home of Mary Murawsky in Rockford, Illinois, for an illegal abortion. Mary was neither licensed nor qualified to practice medicine. Murawsky used some sort of instrument on Isabell.
Isabell's abortion was unusual in that it was performed by an amateur, rather than by a doctor, as was the case with perhaps 90% of criminal abortions.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Isabell's abortion was unusual in that it was performed by an amateur, rather than by a doctor, as was the case with perhaps 90% of criminal abortions.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Search: Uterine scarring
Somebody came searching for an answer to the question, "Why would an abortion cause uterine scarring?"
Because somebody is scraping around the inside of the uterus with hard objects, during a time when the uterus is particularly vascular and soft, trying to disengage an embedded placenta, when neither the uterus nor the placenta is happy about it. The uterus and the placenta are clinging to one another and highly resistant to being separated, You're either going to scrape the walls of the uterus forcing the placenta loose, or you're going to leave bits of placenta behind where they will rot and cause infection, which can cause scaring of its own.
In later abortions, the fetus is dismembered inside the uterus, meaning sharp, bony parts are also scraping around the uterine walls.
And sometimes they manage to poke or tear a hole in the wall of the uterus, causing even greater damage.
Any of this is going to do some damage, possibly causing scarring.
Because somebody is scraping around the inside of the uterus with hard objects, during a time when the uterus is particularly vascular and soft, trying to disengage an embedded placenta, when neither the uterus nor the placenta is happy about it. The uterus and the placenta are clinging to one another and highly resistant to being separated, You're either going to scrape the walls of the uterus forcing the placenta loose, or you're going to leave bits of placenta behind where they will rot and cause infection, which can cause scaring of its own.
In later abortions, the fetus is dismembered inside the uterus, meaning sharp, bony parts are also scraping around the uterine walls.
And sometimes they manage to poke or tear a hole in the wall of the uterus, causing even greater damage.
Any of this is going to do some damage, possibly causing scarring.
The Annual Guilt Purchase Drives
For you, Princess? I'll buy junk looks at the pressure to buy overpriced goods from kids raising money for Boy Scouts, the marching band, and what not.
When I was a kid, my brothers got their Tom-Wat kits every year -- neat cardboard cases containing samples of merchandise you'd actually want to buy, at Dollar General prices. Spatula sets. Car wash cloths. Costume jewelry. Note paper. Cheap but farily sturdy toys. I looked forward to the Tom-Wat kits, making a point of buying many Christmas presents from my brothers. I'm not sure how much money the Cub Scout troop earned this way, but it was honest money honestly gained.
But those days are gone.
Now it's mostly stuff you don't particularly want, at prices that, as Celia Rivenbark said, would put a crack dealer to shame. Even Tom-Wat, once purveyors of modestly-priced stuff you can actually use around the house, now peddles nothing but expensive claptrap.
It's not the kids' fault that whoever's in charge of their fundraisers chooses to have them extort money by selling overpriced stuff nobody really wants. They need the money for their projects -- a camping excursion, new uniforms, whatever.
But I now refuse to be suckered by the fundraising industry. I give the kid a fiver and be done with it.
The group gets more money than they'd have made from an actual sale, and the seedy outfits that send kids to peddle their wares get nothing. And I'm out fifteen dollars less than I'd have spent on a few chocolate truffles.
And I hope for the day when they go back to selling something people would actually want, at market prices.
When I was a kid, my brothers got their Tom-Wat kits every year -- neat cardboard cases containing samples of merchandise you'd actually want to buy, at Dollar General prices. Spatula sets. Car wash cloths. Costume jewelry. Note paper. Cheap but farily sturdy toys. I looked forward to the Tom-Wat kits, making a point of buying many Christmas presents from my brothers. I'm not sure how much money the Cub Scout troop earned this way, but it was honest money honestly gained.
But those days are gone.
Now it's mostly stuff you don't particularly want, at prices that, as Celia Rivenbark said, would put a crack dealer to shame. Even Tom-Wat, once purveyors of modestly-priced stuff you can actually use around the house, now peddles nothing but expensive claptrap.
It's not the kids' fault that whoever's in charge of their fundraisers chooses to have them extort money by selling overpriced stuff nobody really wants. They need the money for their projects -- a camping excursion, new uniforms, whatever.
But I now refuse to be suckered by the fundraising industry. I give the kid a fiver and be done with it.
The group gets more money than they'd have made from an actual sale, and the seedy outfits that send kids to peddle their wares get nothing. And I'm out fifteen dollars less than I'd have spent on a few chocolate truffles.
And I hope for the day when they go back to selling something people would actually want, at market prices.
Tools of the trade: Sopher forceps
Dr. David Sopher is the British abortionist who invented the Sopher forceps (pictured). Look at the picture. Those are medical instruments invented for the express purpose of taking apart a second-trimester baby in-utero, by a guy with so much experience doing so that he decided he needed a specialized tool for doing the job. I think that's something even prochoicers gotta find a tad creepy. What thought process went into inventing these things? "Gosh, they wriggle their little legs right out of these forceps! I need something with a serrated head that they can't squirm out of."
And don't take my word for it that the babies are alive when the friendly doctor grabs hold of them with these things. I'll quote Dr. Leroy Carhart's testimony, in which he was questioned about how he performs his extraction abortions. Carhart indicates that he tried to grab the baby and get it positioned to where he can suck out the brain without taking the baby apart first. But sometimes, he indicates, the baby sticks a limb out through the cervix, and it's just easer to pull that part off and go from there:
Carhart: My normal course would be to dismember that extremity and then go back and try to take the fetus out either foot or skull first, whatever end I can get to first.Question: How do you go about dismembering that extremity?
Carhart: Just traction and rotation, grasping the portion that you can get a hold of which would be usually somewhere up the shaft of the exposed portion of the fetus, pulling down on it through the os, using the internal os as your counter-traction and rotating to dismember the shoulder or the hip or whatever it would be. Sometimes you will get one leg and you can’t get the other leg out.
Question: In that situation, are you, when you pull on the arm and remove it, is the fetus still alive?
Carhart: Yes.
Question: Do you consider an arm, for example, to be a substantial portion of the fetus?
Carhart: In the way I read it, I think if I lost my arm, that would be a substantial loss to me. I think I would have to interpret it that way.
Question: And then what happens next after you remove the arm? You then try to remove the rest of the fetus?
Carhart: Then I would go back and attempt to either bring the feet down or bring the skull down, or even sometimes you bring the other arm down and remove that also and then get the feet down.
Question: At what point is the fetus...does the fetus die during that process?
Carhart: I don’t really know. I know that the fetus is alive during the process most of the time because I can see fetal heartbeat on the ultrasound.
Though, to be fair, some abortionists, after 20 weeks or so, cut the cord or inject chemicals into the baby's heart or take some other method to "ensure fetal demise" the night before the abortion -- though this is done for reasons of practicality, not compassion. A fetus that's been dead overnight has "softened" enough that it's easier to take apart.
This excerpt is from an examination by Judge Richard Casey of the Southern District of New York of Dr. Timothy Johnson on March 31, 2004.
THE COURT: Can you explain to me what that means.
JOHNSON: What they did was they delivered the fetus intact until the head was still trapped behind the cervix, and then they reached up and crushed the head in order to deliver it through the cervix.THE COURT: What did they utilize to crush the head?
JOHNSON: An instrument, a fair, a large pair of forceps that have a round serrated edge at the end of it, so that they were able to bring them together and crush the head between the ends of the instrument.
THE COURT: Like the cracker they use to crack a lobster shell, serrated edge?
JOHNSON: No.
THE COURT: Describe it for me.
JOHNSON: It would be like the end of tongs that are combined that you use to pick up salad. So they would be articulated in the center and you could move one end, and there would be a branch at the center, and the instruments are thick enough and heavy enough that you can actually grasp and crush with those instruments as if you were picking up salad or picking up anything with-
THE COURT: Except here you are crushing the head of a baby.
JOHNSON: Correct.
You can go here to see a medical illustration of how the dismemberment abortions, the kind Sopher forceps are used for, are performed.
(Illustrations are screen captures from Fertility Control By Stephen L. Corson, Richard J. Derman, Louise B. Tyrer)
RIP, Gus
World's ugliest dog dies after battle with cancer.
My daughter and I watched the World's Ugliest Dog competition, and really loved the human interest stories.
One man brought his spectacularly ugly dog, Rascal, to visit a Girl Scout troop. The girls were recoiling in horror. The man asked, "How many of you would like to have a dog like Rascal?" Not a single hand went up. Then the man told Rascal's story and invited the girls to notice how soft his skin was, how good-natured and friendly and playful he was. At the end of the visit, he asked, "How many of you would like to have a dog like Rascal?" Every hand shot up. Rascal had won them over.
A great lesson.
So, rest in peace, Gus. And kudos to all who love the ugly dogs.
My daughter and I watched the World's Ugliest Dog competition, and really loved the human interest stories.
One man brought his spectacularly ugly dog, Rascal, to visit a Girl Scout troop. The girls were recoiling in horror. The man asked, "How many of you would like to have a dog like Rascal?" Not a single hand went up. Then the man told Rascal's story and invited the girls to notice how soft his skin was, how good-natured and friendly and playful he was. At the end of the visit, he asked, "How many of you would like to have a dog like Rascal?" Every hand shot up. Rascal had won them over.
A great lesson.
So, rest in peace, Gus. And kudos to all who love the ugly dogs.
Additions to the sidebar
String of Pearls is a safe place for families who allowed every moment of life for their children, diagnosed in-utero with fatal disorders.
Waiting With Love also offers support to families facing a fatal prenatal diagnosis.
Waiting With Love also offers support to families facing a fatal prenatal diagnosis.
Two contrasting anniversaries
On November 11, 1929, 23-year-old Mary L. Kelly died in Chicago from an abortion performed by an unidentified perpetrator.
But there is also a happy anniversary today, a birthday, in fact. Baby B was born by c-section on this date in 1981, after having survived an attempted abortion at Northland Family Planning the previous March. Happy 27th birthday!
But there is also a happy anniversary today, a birthday, in fact. Baby B was born by c-section on this date in 1981, after having survived an attempted abortion at Northland Family Planning the previous March. Happy 27th birthday!
A gracious concession by an Obama spokesperson
Obama's spokesperson, Valerie Jarrett, conceded to America that George W. Bush is still the President. That's gracious.
But, she notes, Obama will be ready to "take power and begin to rule" on Day 1.
I thought this was America, where we have an Executive Branch, where the President is there to execute the will of the people as determined by their elected Congress. But in Obamerica, the President takes power and rules.
When Craig Ferguson was waiting for his US citizenship, he showed us his British passport -- something he couldn't wait to get rid of. And why? Because it said he was a "subject". And he wanted to be not a subject but a citizen.
It's tragic that this man, who only just got his passport changed to a US passport recognizing him a citizen, not a subject, should see the first election in which he was qualified to vote go to a man who evidently intends to turn Craig Ferguson back into the subject of a ruler.
Tragic irony as well that I'm hearing this on Veterans' Day. Men and women died so we could be citizens, not subjects, so that we could have a leader, not a ruler.
And so it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.
But, she notes, Obama will be ready to "take power and begin to rule" on Day 1.
I thought this was America, where we have an Executive Branch, where the President is there to execute the will of the people as determined by their elected Congress. But in Obamerica, the President takes power and rules.
When Craig Ferguson was waiting for his US citizenship, he showed us his British passport -- something he couldn't wait to get rid of. And why? Because it said he was a "subject". And he wanted to be not a subject but a citizen.
It's tragic that this man, who only just got his passport changed to a US passport recognizing him a citizen, not a subject, should see the first election in which he was qualified to vote go to a man who evidently intends to turn Craig Ferguson back into the subject of a ruler.
Tragic irony as well that I'm hearing this on Veterans' Day. Men and women died so we could be citizens, not subjects, so that we could have a leader, not a ruler.
And so it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.
Reflections on Trig Palin
Trig Palin's public debut brought out a lot of people who have a lot to say about folks with developmental disabilities. I was writing an email to a friend and thought I might as well share my journey a bit with the rest of you.
I know that when I was younger, I'd hear of people who loved to volunteer for Special Olympics or at summer camps for retarded children. And my entire concept of folks with developmental disabilities could be summed up in two words: They drool. That was it! And I could NOT understand why anybody would want to spend time with a bunch of people who drooled. I mean, more power to them, but it was like knowing that some people really do like lima beans. A "There's no accounting for taste" sort of thing.
Then I went to work for an agency that did residential services in MH/MR. I worked the MH side, and was still bewildered as to why so many people were so enthusiastically working the MR side. I'd hear things like, "My heart's in MR." At the company picnic, I'd notice that the MR staff weren't avoiding their charges. They hung out with them and seemed to be enjoying their company. Some of the clients had distorted faces or bodies. Some were slumped over in wheelchairs. Some of them were behaving strangely. I didn't get close enough to see if they drooled. There truly was no accounting for taste.
I was on the Treatment and Ethics Committee that approved specialized plans. And 90% of those specialized plans were for the MR side. And after a couple of months it seemed wrong to me that I was making decisions about these plans when I had no real picture of what was really going on. So I put myself on the list of people willing to work overtime on the MR side.
I fully expected to be grossed out. There would be drool. And people who needed help with the toilet. If I go into a public restroom and there's so much as a cigarette butt or a piece of toilet paper floating in the bowl I'm totally grossed out. The idea of helping an adult with toileting? But I needed to put up or shut up, to go work a while on the MR side or stop passing judgment on their specialized service plans.
It was with great trepidation that I worked my first shift. And it wasn't so bad. The clients were a bit alien to me, but they weren't unpleasant.
The second shift was fun.
The third shift there was my first crisis. A woman who needed toileting help. The regular staff told me that Mary always made a bit of a mess with her BMs, and said "I'll clean Mary up and get her into clean clothes. You do the bathroom."
I put on my gloves, got the cleaning supplies, and walked into the bathroom. There was a bit of BM smeared on the toilet seat, the toilet paper dispenser, and the sink where Mary had tried to wash her hands. But to my immense surprise I wasn't the least bit disgusted or grossed out. I wasn't "cleaning up shit." I was helping Mary use the bathroom as independently as possible. I cleaned it all up with no trauma, no drama. And that was a major turning point for me. This thing I'd dreaded -- the adult who needed help with toileting -- had been no worse than changing a baby's diaper. Not an appetizing prospect, but not a gross-out either. Just a task you do to help somebody. I liked Mary. Helping her seemed a natural part of that. Even helping in the bathroom.
I found I enjoyed working MR.
I went to work an MR home full time. One guy, J, drooled. And it didn't phase me. He could get drool all over my hands and it didn't bother me any more than getting drooled on by a baby. I genuinely enjoyed J's company. J, who was legally blind, could only parrot a few phrases but not really speak, had spastic legs, and fell into seizures frequently. He was a joy to be around, as were both his roommates. J loved to be sung to and read to, and we were seen so often at the library and at free concerts in town that people thought he was my son. C loved to get outside and kick a ball, and would abandon whatever he was doing to greet me at the door with a huge grin and a meticulously careful hug. R loved to sing and, like me, to soak in the tub in the evening. These three guys were just great guys. I looked forward to going to work every day.
I left that agency for other reasons, and it was years before I'd work MR again. And when I first started at the institution, I looked around and saw a bunch of retarded people. As I got to know them, they stopped being "retarded people" and started being just people.
And then there was M. I fell in love with M. I could write a thousand pages on why I love M. A major life event for me was the moment I realize that there was absolutely nothing wrong with M. He wasn't one for the reject pile, an example of humanity that hadn't turned out quite right. He was a masterpiece of God's handiwork EXACLY AS HE WAS, spastic legs, distorted face, developmental issues and all. M didn't take any guff from anybody. If you made him unhappy, he's make sure you were very, very sorry and unlikely to repeat the offensive behavior. If you made him happy, he'd rub his bristly crew-cut head under your chin -- which sounds weird but was the world's greatest pick-me-up. Staff would come from other homes when they were having a bad day, calling out to M, "Where's my lovin'?" just to get one of those strange little head-rubs.
I got "pulled" to a home some nights where I spent all night changing incontinent briefs and putting the women on and off the toilet. I liked working that home. I especially looked forward to the three times a night I'd be helping G. She was "my little elf". A tiny little woman with huge brown eyes and a smile that went straight to my soul. I could write pages on just the joy of taking her to the bathroom at night, just quiet times when it seemed we were the only two people awake in the world. I miss her so much.
And as I re-read this I notice something. So many of the treasured moments were the simplest things. Waking G up to use the bathroom. Brushing M's teeth. Singing to P. Shooting baskets with T. Just simple things that were imbued with magic somehow. And that's something you have to live, I think, before you can even begin to understand it.
Now, when I see somebody with a developmental disability, I'm not put off. I'm delighted. I was walking through a park in Seoul, when it became clear that the group of people exploring the temple grounds were from some sort of group home. I went joyfully into their midst, greeting them and shaking hands and basking in the smiles. My only beef with the whole situation was that they were in a huge group. I know it's more off-putting to the uninitiated that way. Let each person be with his own family and friends instead of with "other people like him." But still, it's one of my fondest memories of Korea.
I found out that MY heart is in MR. And I found out that WE were the losers when we put these folks away, segregated them, out of sight, out of contact. We've lost a lot more than they have.
UPDATE: Read Pat Goltz' excellent Thoughts on Having a Nephew with Down Syndrome. She notes that the "mental retardation" associated with Down syndrome can largely be attributed to people's perception of kids with DS, perceptions that become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But what particularly excited me was the part about how her nephew knew how to get what he wanted. It was very humbling, at the institution, to be totally outfoxed by somebody with an I.Q. of 20 or so. It taught me that there are many different kinds of smarts, some that we're only just now learning to recognize and not even near knowing how to measure, and that many folks dismissed as "retarded" because they lack bookishness have these other kinds of smarts in spades.
ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: When I was working at the institution, I read a book by a man who said that we should ditch the entire concept of "mental retardation". At first I thought, "That's crazy!" But as I read more it made sense.
If you do an "intelligence" test on any group of people, the results will form a bell curve. Just about any measure will, in fact, form a bell curve: height, weight, I.Q., hair length, shoe size, you name it.
When we give people I.Q. tests, we say that the people in the middle are "normal". We say that the people at the high end are "gifted". But we take the people at the low end of the bell curve -- where, after all, somebody has to be! -- and make them into something pathological. When people are in the middle of the curve, we recognize that as just normal. When they're at the high end, that's just normal human variation. But when they're at the low end, we suddenly forget the way bell curves work. Suddenly we don't treat it as normal human variation, but treat it as a pathology. And THAT, my friends, is truly retarded!
Whoa! Feel the paradigm shift! Getting the point this man was making was another major life event for me.
YET ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: While we're on the topic of what's truly retarded, how about some of the people who manage institutions? They force people to live together based on the results of an IQ test that may have been administered decades earlier, then are verily astonished when these people don't get along. Well, what do you expect? How would these managers like it if somebody else said, "Well, you and Fred both scored 112 on the IQ tests given at school when you were six years old. So you and Fred will be roommates until I decide otherwise." You'd see how insane and totally stupid that is if you were doing it to people on the upper two-thirds of the bell curve. But do it to people on the lower third and you're bewildered as to why it doesn't make for harmonious relationships.
YET ANOTHER FURTHER DIFFERENT POSTSCRIPT: I'll add the story of my favorite part of working at the institution for the disabled: Getting G. up to use the bathroom at night.
I'd creep into the room so as not to wake her roommate, crouch down by the bed, and touch her shoulder, saying, "Time to go pee!"
Those huge brown eyes would open and look into mine and she'd just smile. (Would YOU smile at somebody who repeatedly wakes you up in the middle of the night?)
I'd help her up out of bed and walk down the long hallway with her. She barely came up to my armpit, she was so tiny. She had a strange, stork-like gait that made her unsteady on her feet, so she leaned on me. Sometimes she'd look up at me with those eyes of hers and that smile of hers and I'd say, "You're my little elf, you know that?" And the smile would get even more radiant.
There was an enormous mirror over the bathroom sink. When we got to the bathroom we'd stop and look in the mirror together. I'd stand behind her, wrap my arms around her, rest my cheek atop her head, and we'd just smile into each other's eyes in the mirror. The place was quiet. There was nobody but us awake. It was magic.
Sometimes I'd break the rules and carry her back to bed just because I loved how she felt in my arms. She'd look up at me with eyes you could live in, I swear.
I'd tuck her back in, and she'd still be smiling.
And as I'd turn to shut the door, I'd look at her one last time. She'd still be watching me, a faint smile still on her lips, her eyes luminous in the dim light from the hall.
At moments like that, it was as if everything was right with the world.
ONE MORE TIME, WITH FEELING: Some people might comment about how developmentally disabled folks teach us compassion. But that wasn't the case for me. "Compassion" means "to suffer with". And the folks I worked with weren't suffering, except occasionally from the same slings and arrows that afflict us all, such as having buttheads for near relations or having to live with somebody you don't get along with. What they taught me was more about broadening my horizons and opening my eyes. And M., least of all, needed compassion. He didn't suffer; if you crossed him, he made you suffer. Which was the first thing I learned to love about him. That he didn't take any guff from anybody.
I know that when I was younger, I'd hear of people who loved to volunteer for Special Olympics or at summer camps for retarded children. And my entire concept of folks with developmental disabilities could be summed up in two words: They drool. That was it! And I could NOT understand why anybody would want to spend time with a bunch of people who drooled. I mean, more power to them, but it was like knowing that some people really do like lima beans. A "There's no accounting for taste" sort of thing.
Then I went to work for an agency that did residential services in MH/MR. I worked the MH side, and was still bewildered as to why so many people were so enthusiastically working the MR side. I'd hear things like, "My heart's in MR." At the company picnic, I'd notice that the MR staff weren't avoiding their charges. They hung out with them and seemed to be enjoying their company. Some of the clients had distorted faces or bodies. Some were slumped over in wheelchairs. Some of them were behaving strangely. I didn't get close enough to see if they drooled. There truly was no accounting for taste.
I was on the Treatment and Ethics Committee that approved specialized plans. And 90% of those specialized plans were for the MR side. And after a couple of months it seemed wrong to me that I was making decisions about these plans when I had no real picture of what was really going on. So I put myself on the list of people willing to work overtime on the MR side.
I fully expected to be grossed out. There would be drool. And people who needed help with the toilet. If I go into a public restroom and there's so much as a cigarette butt or a piece of toilet paper floating in the bowl I'm totally grossed out. The idea of helping an adult with toileting? But I needed to put up or shut up, to go work a while on the MR side or stop passing judgment on their specialized service plans.
It was with great trepidation that I worked my first shift. And it wasn't so bad. The clients were a bit alien to me, but they weren't unpleasant.
The second shift was fun.
The third shift there was my first crisis. A woman who needed toileting help. The regular staff told me that Mary always made a bit of a mess with her BMs, and said "I'll clean Mary up and get her into clean clothes. You do the bathroom."
I put on my gloves, got the cleaning supplies, and walked into the bathroom. There was a bit of BM smeared on the toilet seat, the toilet paper dispenser, and the sink where Mary had tried to wash her hands. But to my immense surprise I wasn't the least bit disgusted or grossed out. I wasn't "cleaning up shit." I was helping Mary use the bathroom as independently as possible. I cleaned it all up with no trauma, no drama. And that was a major turning point for me. This thing I'd dreaded -- the adult who needed help with toileting -- had been no worse than changing a baby's diaper. Not an appetizing prospect, but not a gross-out either. Just a task you do to help somebody. I liked Mary. Helping her seemed a natural part of that. Even helping in the bathroom.
I found I enjoyed working MR.
I went to work an MR home full time. One guy, J, drooled. And it didn't phase me. He could get drool all over my hands and it didn't bother me any more than getting drooled on by a baby. I genuinely enjoyed J's company. J, who was legally blind, could only parrot a few phrases but not really speak, had spastic legs, and fell into seizures frequently. He was a joy to be around, as were both his roommates. J loved to be sung to and read to, and we were seen so often at the library and at free concerts in town that people thought he was my son. C loved to get outside and kick a ball, and would abandon whatever he was doing to greet me at the door with a huge grin and a meticulously careful hug. R loved to sing and, like me, to soak in the tub in the evening. These three guys were just great guys. I looked forward to going to work every day.
I left that agency for other reasons, and it was years before I'd work MR again. And when I first started at the institution, I looked around and saw a bunch of retarded people. As I got to know them, they stopped being "retarded people" and started being just people.
And then there was M. I fell in love with M. I could write a thousand pages on why I love M. A major life event for me was the moment I realize that there was absolutely nothing wrong with M. He wasn't one for the reject pile, an example of humanity that hadn't turned out quite right. He was a masterpiece of God's handiwork EXACLY AS HE WAS, spastic legs, distorted face, developmental issues and all. M didn't take any guff from anybody. If you made him unhappy, he's make sure you were very, very sorry and unlikely to repeat the offensive behavior. If you made him happy, he'd rub his bristly crew-cut head under your chin -- which sounds weird but was the world's greatest pick-me-up. Staff would come from other homes when they were having a bad day, calling out to M, "Where's my lovin'?" just to get one of those strange little head-rubs.
I got "pulled" to a home some nights where I spent all night changing incontinent briefs and putting the women on and off the toilet. I liked working that home. I especially looked forward to the three times a night I'd be helping G. She was "my little elf". A tiny little woman with huge brown eyes and a smile that went straight to my soul. I could write pages on just the joy of taking her to the bathroom at night, just quiet times when it seemed we were the only two people awake in the world. I miss her so much.
And as I re-read this I notice something. So many of the treasured moments were the simplest things. Waking G up to use the bathroom. Brushing M's teeth. Singing to P. Shooting baskets with T. Just simple things that were imbued with magic somehow. And that's something you have to live, I think, before you can even begin to understand it.
Now, when I see somebody with a developmental disability, I'm not put off. I'm delighted. I was walking through a park in Seoul, when it became clear that the group of people exploring the temple grounds were from some sort of group home. I went joyfully into their midst, greeting them and shaking hands and basking in the smiles. My only beef with the whole situation was that they were in a huge group. I know it's more off-putting to the uninitiated that way. Let each person be with his own family and friends instead of with "other people like him." But still, it's one of my fondest memories of Korea.
I found out that MY heart is in MR. And I found out that WE were the losers when we put these folks away, segregated them, out of sight, out of contact. We've lost a lot more than they have.
UPDATE: Read Pat Goltz' excellent Thoughts on Having a Nephew with Down Syndrome. She notes that the "mental retardation" associated with Down syndrome can largely be attributed to people's perception of kids with DS, perceptions that become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But what particularly excited me was the part about how her nephew knew how to get what he wanted. It was very humbling, at the institution, to be totally outfoxed by somebody with an I.Q. of 20 or so. It taught me that there are many different kinds of smarts, some that we're only just now learning to recognize and not even near knowing how to measure, and that many folks dismissed as "retarded" because they lack bookishness have these other kinds of smarts in spades.
ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: When I was working at the institution, I read a book by a man who said that we should ditch the entire concept of "mental retardation". At first I thought, "That's crazy!" But as I read more it made sense.
If you do an "intelligence" test on any group of people, the results will form a bell curve. Just about any measure will, in fact, form a bell curve: height, weight, I.Q., hair length, shoe size, you name it.
When we give people I.Q. tests, we say that the people in the middle are "normal". We say that the people at the high end are "gifted". But we take the people at the low end of the bell curve -- where, after all, somebody has to be! -- and make them into something pathological. When people are in the middle of the curve, we recognize that as just normal. When they're at the high end, that's just normal human variation. But when they're at the low end, we suddenly forget the way bell curves work. Suddenly we don't treat it as normal human variation, but treat it as a pathology. And THAT, my friends, is truly retarded!
Whoa! Feel the paradigm shift! Getting the point this man was making was another major life event for me.
YET ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: While we're on the topic of what's truly retarded, how about some of the people who manage institutions? They force people to live together based on the results of an IQ test that may have been administered decades earlier, then are verily astonished when these people don't get along. Well, what do you expect? How would these managers like it if somebody else said, "Well, you and Fred both scored 112 on the IQ tests given at school when you were six years old. So you and Fred will be roommates until I decide otherwise." You'd see how insane and totally stupid that is if you were doing it to people on the upper two-thirds of the bell curve. But do it to people on the lower third and you're bewildered as to why it doesn't make for harmonious relationships.
YET ANOTHER FURTHER DIFFERENT POSTSCRIPT: I'll add the story of my favorite part of working at the institution for the disabled: Getting G. up to use the bathroom at night.
I'd creep into the room so as not to wake her roommate, crouch down by the bed, and touch her shoulder, saying, "Time to go pee!"
Those huge brown eyes would open and look into mine and she'd just smile. (Would YOU smile at somebody who repeatedly wakes you up in the middle of the night?)
I'd help her up out of bed and walk down the long hallway with her. She barely came up to my armpit, she was so tiny. She had a strange, stork-like gait that made her unsteady on her feet, so she leaned on me. Sometimes she'd look up at me with those eyes of hers and that smile of hers and I'd say, "You're my little elf, you know that?" And the smile would get even more radiant.
There was an enormous mirror over the bathroom sink. When we got to the bathroom we'd stop and look in the mirror together. I'd stand behind her, wrap my arms around her, rest my cheek atop her head, and we'd just smile into each other's eyes in the mirror. The place was quiet. There was nobody but us awake. It was magic.
Sometimes I'd break the rules and carry her back to bed just because I loved how she felt in my arms. She'd look up at me with eyes you could live in, I swear.
I'd tuck her back in, and she'd still be smiling.
And as I'd turn to shut the door, I'd look at her one last time. She'd still be watching me, a faint smile still on her lips, her eyes luminous in the dim light from the hall.
At moments like that, it was as if everything was right with the world.
ONE MORE TIME, WITH FEELING: Some people might comment about how developmentally disabled folks teach us compassion. But that wasn't the case for me. "Compassion" means "to suffer with". And the folks I worked with weren't suffering, except occasionally from the same slings and arrows that afflict us all, such as having buttheads for near relations or having to live with somebody you don't get along with. What they taught me was more about broadening my horizons and opening my eyes. And M., least of all, needed compassion. He didn't suffer; if you crossed him, he made you suffer. Which was the first thing I learned to love about him. That he didn't take any guff from anybody.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Stealing from Dogbert
I just got my Dogbert's New Ruling Class Newsletter. I'm gonna steal from it to make a new Sarah Palin Fact:
Sarah Palin so hot that scientists are trying to get government funding to find out if she is the cause of global warming. All we know for sure is that when polar bears think of her, they die. But they die happy.
Sarah Palin so hot that scientists are trying to get government funding to find out if she is the cause of global warming. All we know for sure is that when polar bears think of her, they die. But they die happy.
Something for all of us to chew on
Auschwitz through the lens of the SS: Photos of Nazi leadership at the camp
A photo album shows life at the retreat at Auschwitz. Laughing girls. Sing-alongs. All alongside the gassing.
Remarkable. And instructive. It's so easy to just dismiss the Nazis as monsters, as if they were Bond villains.
Real evil wears a different face.
Is it the face we see in the mirror?
HT: Conversion Diary
A photo album shows life at the retreat at Auschwitz. Laughing girls. Sing-alongs. All alongside the gassing.
Remarkable. And instructive. It's so easy to just dismiss the Nazis as monsters, as if they were Bond villains.
Real evil wears a different face.
Is it the face we see in the mirror?
HT: Conversion Diary
Responding to ashley
I got the following comment to my post, "Feel the LOVE!"
I'll post the comment in its entirety first, so you can get the whole thing free of any editing or commentary, then I'll respond to the main themes.
Here goes!
Welcome critique. Thank you. I know I often fail in the sensitivity department and it's good to be appropriately chided about it. I'll try to be a bit more thoughtful.
I've never denied that there are some real turkeys out there fighting abortion. In one post I dubbed them "banshees". I don't think I've ever seen prolifers denying that they exist. We just deny that they're typical or even -- given our numbers -- common. Whereas the prochoice tend to sweepingly say things like "Nobody is FOR abortions!" or "Nobody hates disabled babies!" I bring up those examples to point out that yes, there are people who are very much FOR abortions, often for forcing abortions on somebody else, typically because of racism, a desire to push for population control, or prejudice against babies with disabilities.
These people all too often get into positions where they have the ability to do a lot of damage. Doctors with eugenic goals frighten women into unwanted abortions after an unfavorable prenatal diagnosis. Population-control fanatics push for draconian programs like the Chinese single-child policy. Racists set up abortion facilities in minority neighborhood and use deception to get the women to consent to abortions. I realize that these are not behaviors that meet with the approval of the majority of prochoice citizens. It's my hope that prochoice citizens will learn to recognize these wolves in sheep's clothing and hold them accountable. So far I've not been successful, mostly because as soon as somebody really starts to recognize proabortion activities under the guise of "choice" they tend to "convert". They become prolifers and effectively neutralize themselves politically. A notable exception is Betsy Hartmann, aughor of Reproductive Rights and Wrongs. There are a few regulars in here as well, but they're a tiny minority. I'm not out to convert people to the prolife cause, because we don't need any more people who are dismissed out of hand simply because they oppose abortion. I am out to get prochoicers to clear the proabortion out from their ranks and take their power away. I think that this, more than anything else, would probably eliminate at least 80% of abortions, simply by eliminating deception, coercion, and manipulation.
But does this mean looking the other way while women who don't want abortions are coerced into them, or are having them when other resources are available that the don't know about? Here is where I'm trying to reach prochoicers without converting them -- because "converting" them effectively takes them out of play.
Imagine if prochoice citizens insisted -- as Senator Kennedy has recently done in his sponsorship of the Brownback/Kennedy Bill -- that it's not acceptable for doctors and other health care professionals to give women one-sided information about prenatal diagnoses in order to frighten them into abortions. Imagine if they also insisted that it was no longer okay for doctors to send women for unwanted abortions for "health" reasons because those doctors are too lazy or afraid of lawsuits to provide them with adequate care. Imagine if prochoice citizens insisted that statutory rape victims be separated from their abusers and given adequate counseling, rather than aborted at the behest of their abusers. Imagine of prochoice citizens insisted that no woman should ever be submitting to an abortion because she feels trapped, as if she has no other options, if they insisted that if a woman want other options, the community needs to rally around her and make those other options a reality. Imagine if the only women having abortions were women who actually wanted the abortions. How much would that reduce the abortion rate? All without a single "anti-choice" law being passed.
I'm sure the economy had an impact, but I'm sure abortions also fell because Clinton did not hinder efforts to reduce abortions. Abortion rates continued to fall under Bush. And the states in which abortion rates fell the fastest were those with informed consent laws, parental involvement laws, and waiting periods. You can't lay credit on Clinton's door; you'd have to lay it with the Casey Court, which opened the door to these effective laws.
I think that here we're singing 90% from the same page.
You realize that of course I'm going to think that there's more evil on the prochoice side, because of the inherent evil of killing the unborn, as well as the apparent willingness to let the abortion lobby surrender women to abuse, mistreatment, and quackery. But if I thought that prochoicers were just plain evil, I'd not be talking to any of y'all here.
I've said it before that I think that a move of the truly proCHOICE would turn this thing around. And if the abuses and quackery were effectively addressed, you'd go a long way to take the wind out of our sails. Imagine if abortion really were practiced the way you wish it were. And the power to make that happen lies with you and with other prochoice citizens. All I can do is make information available to you. You can actually set goals of honesty, integrity, professionalism, and respect for what the women in question really want, as opposed to what they feel trapped into. And you can make those goals a reality.
I'll post the comment in its entirety first, so you can get the whole thing free of any editing or commentary, then I'll respond to the main themes.
I have been poking around the blog, and I'm torn. Some of the statments and blogs made are well written explainations of your views and why you believe, and I find these blogs very informative and helpful. Others are designed solely to make liberal, pro-choice supporters sound cruel, stupid and uneducated.
I feel the biggest problem in politics is this rash over-generalization. There are some "abortion is my form of birth control" extremists, as there are "i can justify bombing a abortion clinic" extremists. These are few and far between.
Just as you have horrible, insenstive comments from pro-choicers, have you ever looked for similarly rude and heartless comments from pro-choices? Have you looked for the evil in your own camp? Both sides have faults.
I myself could never have an abortion, I respect the life growing inside me far too much. But I don't believe it's my place to tell other women they can't. I may be pro-choice, but I don't plan on my baby (not fetus - it's my baby) being tested for down's because it doesn't matter to me - my child will be born and loved regardless.
For every obnoxious, cruel pro-choicer poster you find, there is someone like me, who loves and respects the child growing within them, but who won't make this call for someone else.
Also, for those of you for whom abortion is the deciding factor, look and see that during Clinton's adminstration, abortion rates declined despite his stance. During this time, the country was in less economic turmoil, which leads to less abortion. I think everyone would benefit by instead of outright trying to ban abortion, let's try and solve some of the the causes of abortion, such as cost and misinformation. Pro-lifers, instead of protesting, volunteer at clinics which can educate a young women about the choice she is making without being judgmental. Pro-choicers, recognize that this a human rights issue as much as war or poverty, and never assume a young women should get an abortion because she isn't ready. There are so many people out there to love that child.
Just please, lets stop pointing fingers, saying the other side is more evil than ours. You should know the verse: Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?Matthew 7:3.
Feel free to respond.
Here goes!
I have been poking around the blog, and I'm torn. Some of the statments and blogs made are well written explainations of your views and why you believe, and I find these blogs very informative and helpful. Others are designed solely to make liberal, pro-choice supporters sound cruel, stupid and uneducated.
Welcome critique. Thank you. I know I often fail in the sensitivity department and it's good to be appropriately chided about it. I'll try to be a bit more thoughtful.
I feel the biggest problem in politics is this rash over-generalization. There are some "abortion is my form of birth control" extremists, as there are "i can justify bombing a abortion clinic" extremists. These are few and far between.
Just as you have horrible, insenstive comments from pro-choicers, have you ever looked for similarly rude and heartless comments from pro-choices? Have you looked for the evil in your own camp? Both sides have faults.
I've never denied that there are some real turkeys out there fighting abortion. In one post I dubbed them "banshees". I don't think I've ever seen prolifers denying that they exist. We just deny that they're typical or even -- given our numbers -- common. Whereas the prochoice tend to sweepingly say things like "Nobody is FOR abortions!" or "Nobody hates disabled babies!" I bring up those examples to point out that yes, there are people who are very much FOR abortions, often for forcing abortions on somebody else, typically because of racism, a desire to push for population control, or prejudice against babies with disabilities.
These people all too often get into positions where they have the ability to do a lot of damage. Doctors with eugenic goals frighten women into unwanted abortions after an unfavorable prenatal diagnosis. Population-control fanatics push for draconian programs like the Chinese single-child policy. Racists set up abortion facilities in minority neighborhood and use deception to get the women to consent to abortions. I realize that these are not behaviors that meet with the approval of the majority of prochoice citizens. It's my hope that prochoice citizens will learn to recognize these wolves in sheep's clothing and hold them accountable. So far I've not been successful, mostly because as soon as somebody really starts to recognize proabortion activities under the guise of "choice" they tend to "convert". They become prolifers and effectively neutralize themselves politically. A notable exception is Betsy Hartmann, aughor of Reproductive Rights and Wrongs. There are a few regulars in here as well, but they're a tiny minority. I'm not out to convert people to the prolife cause, because we don't need any more people who are dismissed out of hand simply because they oppose abortion. I am out to get prochoicers to clear the proabortion out from their ranks and take their power away. I think that this, more than anything else, would probably eliminate at least 80% of abortions, simply by eliminating deception, coercion, and manipulation.
I myself could never have an abortion, I respect the life growing inside me far too much. But I don't believe it's my place to tell other women they can't.
But does this mean looking the other way while women who don't want abortions are coerced into them, or are having them when other resources are available that the don't know about? Here is where I'm trying to reach prochoicers without converting them -- because "converting" them effectively takes them out of play.
Imagine if prochoice citizens insisted -- as Senator Kennedy has recently done in his sponsorship of the Brownback/Kennedy Bill -- that it's not acceptable for doctors and other health care professionals to give women one-sided information about prenatal diagnoses in order to frighten them into abortions. Imagine if they also insisted that it was no longer okay for doctors to send women for unwanted abortions for "health" reasons because those doctors are too lazy or afraid of lawsuits to provide them with adequate care. Imagine if prochoice citizens insisted that statutory rape victims be separated from their abusers and given adequate counseling, rather than aborted at the behest of their abusers. Imagine of prochoice citizens insisted that no woman should ever be submitting to an abortion because she feels trapped, as if she has no other options, if they insisted that if a woman want other options, the community needs to rally around her and make those other options a reality. Imagine if the only women having abortions were women who actually wanted the abortions. How much would that reduce the abortion rate? All without a single "anti-choice" law being passed.
Also, for those of you for whom abortion is the deciding factor, look and see that during Clinton's adminstration, abortion rates declined despite his stance.
I'm sure the economy had an impact, but I'm sure abortions also fell because Clinton did not hinder efforts to reduce abortions. Abortion rates continued to fall under Bush. And the states in which abortion rates fell the fastest were those with informed consent laws, parental involvement laws, and waiting periods. You can't lay credit on Clinton's door; you'd have to lay it with the Casey Court, which opened the door to these effective laws.
I think everyone would benefit by instead of outright trying to ban abortion, let's try and solve some of the the causes of abortion, such as cost and misinformation. Pro-lifers, instead of protesting, volunteer at clinics which can educate a young women about the choice she is making without being judgmental. Pro-choicers, recognize that this a human rights issue as much as war or poverty, and never assume a young women should get an abortion because she isn't ready. There are so many people out there to love that child.
I think that here we're singing 90% from the same page.
Just please, lets stop pointing fingers, saying the other side is more evil than ours. You should know the verse: Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?Matthew 7:3.
You realize that of course I'm going to think that there's more evil on the prochoice side, because of the inherent evil of killing the unborn, as well as the apparent willingness to let the abortion lobby surrender women to abuse, mistreatment, and quackery. But if I thought that prochoicers were just plain evil, I'd not be talking to any of y'all here.
I've said it before that I think that a move of the truly proCHOICE would turn this thing around. And if the abuses and quackery were effectively addressed, you'd go a long way to take the wind out of our sails. Imagine if abortion really were practiced the way you wish it were. And the power to make that happen lies with you and with other prochoice citizens. All I can do is make information available to you. You can actually set goals of honesty, integrity, professionalism, and respect for what the women in question really want, as opposed to what they feel trapped into. And you can make those goals a reality.
Wanting Obama to succeed
I was listening to Sean Hannity on the drive home, and the issue came up of whether or not he wants Obama to succeed as President. An Obama supporter called in and said -- I think very validly -- that he doesn't think Sean wants Obama to succeed.
If somebody were to ask, "Do you want Obama to succeed?" my immediate response would be, "Hell, no!" Because if I wanted his agenda -- "spread the wealth", kowtowing to the abortion lobby, bankrupting the coal industry, etc. -- I'd have voted for him in the first place.
But if you re-phrased it as "Do you want Obama to be a successful President?" the answer would be "Yes," because of how I define a successful President: one who leads the country toward greater freedom, justice, prosperity, and inclusiveness.
Now, Obama supporters would say, "Well, that's why we voted for him!"
But Liberals and Conservatives define these things differently.
I could go into a whole litany, but I'll just stick with life issues.
Liberal "freedom" includes the freedom to practice abortion without let or hindrance, in practice usually at the expense of the very women "choice" is supposed to help, and always at the cost of the lives of unborn children who have done no wrong.
Liberal "justice" includes forcing medical professionals to participate in the killing of unborn children, disabled newborns, people with severe cognitive disabilities, and depressed people whose lives the Liberals deem not really worth living due to illness or disability.
Liberal "justice" includes forcing taxpayers to fund abortions -- including (perhaps unwittingly, but nonetheless) unwanted abortions here at home and coerced and forced abortions under repressive regimes around the world.
Liberal "inclusiveness" excludes the unborn, the severely disabled, the depressed and sick, and micropreemies. Not to mention it excludes any right to dissenting speech.
So for Obama to "succeed" he would pursue and achieve all these things he has promised to pursue, at the cost of vulnerable women, unborn children, and people of all ages with profound disabilities or chronic ailments. I can't want him to succeed at these things.
To be a "successful" President, as Conservatives define it, he would have to, among other things, decide to pursue inclusiveness -- treating everybody, regardless of age, abilities, or "wantedness" as valuable members of our community.
I want him to be a successful President. Which means I can't want him to succeed.
Confused enough yet?
If somebody were to ask, "Do you want Obama to succeed?" my immediate response would be, "Hell, no!" Because if I wanted his agenda -- "spread the wealth", kowtowing to the abortion lobby, bankrupting the coal industry, etc. -- I'd have voted for him in the first place.
But if you re-phrased it as "Do you want Obama to be a successful President?" the answer would be "Yes," because of how I define a successful President: one who leads the country toward greater freedom, justice, prosperity, and inclusiveness.
Now, Obama supporters would say, "Well, that's why we voted for him!"
But Liberals and Conservatives define these things differently.
I could go into a whole litany, but I'll just stick with life issues.
Liberal "freedom" includes the freedom to practice abortion without let or hindrance, in practice usually at the expense of the very women "choice" is supposed to help, and always at the cost of the lives of unborn children who have done no wrong.
Liberal "justice" includes forcing medical professionals to participate in the killing of unborn children, disabled newborns, people with severe cognitive disabilities, and depressed people whose lives the Liberals deem not really worth living due to illness or disability.
Liberal "justice" includes forcing taxpayers to fund abortions -- including (perhaps unwittingly, but nonetheless) unwanted abortions here at home and coerced and forced abortions under repressive regimes around the world.
Liberal "inclusiveness" excludes the unborn, the severely disabled, the depressed and sick, and micropreemies. Not to mention it excludes any right to dissenting speech.
So for Obama to "succeed" he would pursue and achieve all these things he has promised to pursue, at the cost of vulnerable women, unborn children, and people of all ages with profound disabilities or chronic ailments. I can't want him to succeed at these things.
To be a "successful" President, as Conservatives define it, he would have to, among other things, decide to pursue inclusiveness -- treating everybody, regardless of age, abilities, or "wantedness" as valuable members of our community.
I want him to be a successful President. Which means I can't want him to succeed.
Confused enough yet?
Feel the LOVE!
These are selected comments at Fark in response to the Washington Post article about people adopting kids with Down syndrome:
Any more questions as to why prolifers think prochoicers are bigots who hate kids with disabilities?
Exodus 2001: So going full retard is OK now?
dahmers love zombie: It's terribly unfair to them when parents do that. Essentially saying "we wanted to get a child that we can spend MUCH more time and money on than you".
Because People in Power are Stupid: President Bush is retarded and that makes it cool.
Deltabourne: Hey, we elected a Trig of our own too. Twice.
Philly_gp: That is SO Gross!
Bruce Campbell Said So: This will go about as well as when everyone decided to get a clownfish of their very own after Finding Nemo came out. Most of them got flushed down the toilet, so I guess we can see where this is going.
thisbymaster: they should be put down like any other animal(republicans)
Brittney Spears Speculum: 'bout time for Bristol to miscarry.
SemperLieSuckah: Why would you want to adopt the child of five monkeys having buttsex with a fish-squirrel?
JOEKC: Are there different degrees of Down Syndrome? Every time I saw Trig on TV in the last couple of months he was so totally inert I could have sworn he was a doll. Sometimes Mom seemed to be carrying him like a sack of flour. It all seemed surreal. I'm not making a judgment really, but a woman in her mid 40's who gets pregnant has an enormous risk of bearing a DS child. My note to JOEKC: Low muscle tone is common in babies with Down syndrome, yes. But sleeping babies also go totally limp.
Verloren: For adopting special needs children, I say either adopt once your child/ren is/are old enough to understand, or after your child/ren has/have moved out.
The_Time_Master: (Posts photoshop of the VEEP debate, with speech balloons for Biden) "Ms. Palin, what's the difference between your mouth and your vagina? Only some of the things that come out of your vagina are retarded."
RocketRay: I thought the kid's name was Prop.
thelordofcheese: Oh, ho... They're in for a fun surprise. Trust me. Going to Special Olympics can be tiring.
Funk Brothers: Oh great everybody's accepting dysgenics now. Eugenics is the way to go.
Any more questions as to why prolifers think prochoicers are bigots who hate kids with disabilities?
Anniversary: Near-fatal third-trimester abortion in New York
A 20-year-old patient, identified in New York medical board documents as "Patient A," was treated by Steven Chase Brigham (pictured) at his American Medical Pavilion and AB Services of New York November 10 and 11 of 1993. To avoid depersonalizing her, I'll call her "Millie".Millie called Brigham's office at American Medical Services in Spring Valley, NY, on November 7 or 8, 1993. She made an appointment for an abortion beginning on November 10. Brigham performed an ultrasound on Millie at about 5 PM on November 10, and told her that she was 26 weeks pregnant. Although Millie was in the very late second or early 3rd trimester, Brigham and his staff provided her with a "fact sheet" for first trimester abortions.
During the examination on November 10, Brigham "should have been able to observe that Patient A was 26 weeks pregnant, obese, smoked cigaretts and had unspecified allergies. A practitioner would also have been able to observe that this patient had a very long vagina, a very long cervical canal, and a very small external cervix." These were all risk factors for abortion and anesthesia or sedation.
He inserted 12 laminaria to dilate her cervix. He also injected digoxin into the fetal heart to start the abortion. Brigham told her to come back the next day to finish the abortion.
Millie returned at about 9 AM. Brigham performed an evacuation procedure to remove the fetus. Millie was under twilight anesthesia for the abortion. She was transferred to the recovery room at about 11 AM.
"While in the recovery room, Patient A bled profusely, vomited and lost consciousness." Prior to her loss of consciousness, Millie was noted to have been confused and disoriented, with a pulse of 100 at 12:20 PM. By 12:30 PM, Millie's blood pressure was 90/50 and her pulse was 90. By 12:40, her blood pressure had fallen to 85/50. These are signs that the patient's body is trying to compensate for serious blood loss.
During this period, Brigham administered a fast infusion of IV fluids. By 12:50, this brought Millie's blood pressure up to 110/65, and her pulse down to 85. But at 1:00, Millie's blood pressure was 100/50 and her pulse was back up to 93. Brigham resuctioned Millie's uterus and failed to notice any injury. By 1:30, Millie's blood pressure had fallen to 70/50, with a pulse of 90. By 2:05, her blood pressure was 90/50, her pulse was 95, and her oxygen saturation was 92%. Her hematocrit had fallen to 29% from a preoperative level of 35%. Brigham administered oxygen via face mask.
Brigham continued to try to figure out what was wrong with Millie. By 2:30, she was "cool, pale, tired and dry... talking and laughing and had urinated on him." These are signs that a patient is in serious trouble, likely going into shock, and in need of immediate care.
Millie's blood pressure remained low, and her pulse began to climb to 104, 112, 115, and finally 120 at 2:50.
At 2:55, Millie tried to sit up. She experienced dizziness and a guss of blood.
Brigham continued to try to treat Millie in his office until around 3 PM. Her hematocrit was 18%. Brigham finally transferred her to the hospital by ambulance.
Millie was in hypovolemic shock on arrival. Her hematocrit was 9%. She had a cervical laceration extending up into her lower uterus, and her uterine artery had been lacerated. Millie was given 4 units of packed cells, two units of fresh frozen plasma, and 10 units of platelets. She required an emergency hysterectomy.
The medical board specifically faulted Brigham in that he:
The board also noted that Brigham didn't keep records on Millie during the procedure or immediately thereafter. They were written the day after the abortion, when Millie was hospitalized.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Thanx! I needed that!
HT: Stop the ACLU. In a post about a proposed OBAMA NATIONAL HOLIDAY! You just can't make this shit up. Reality gets harder and harder to parody.
Call for substantiating documentation
I check daily to see which posts people are seeing in my blog and what searches brought them there. So I was reminded today that I still have been utterly unable to find verification for the four abortion deaths I found at the National Organization for Women web site. I tried asking NOW and didn't get an answer.
They listed a collection illegal abortion deaths, one of which I know from original source documents was a miscarriage death, not an induced abortion. I have the othera listed in my Cemetery of Choice, but I really hate having some of them there when I can't verify the stories as being from any more reliable source than one I know is wrong on 1 out of 7.
The four I can't find any verification on are:
Vivian Campbell, Pittsburgh area, May 6, 1950, mother of the late Pittsburgh police chief Gwendolyn J. "Gwen" Elliott. Everything I've found says that Gwen found out her mother had really died from an illegal abortion when she got her death certificate years later. One story says that the death certificate said "spontaneous abortion" (which is a miscarriage), the other story says the death certificate read "abortion (?)" -- which could be an induced abortion or a miscarriage. Going just by the sources I can find, then, Vivian is a definite unconfirmed, most likely actually being a miscarriage death mistakenly blamed on a criminal abortion by a shocked adult child who didn't realize that "abortion" is the medical term for a miscarriage.
Clara Bell Duvall, Pittsburgh, March 27, 1929. In this one, the woman's daughter states that as an adult her older sister, who spent time with their mother in the hospital prior to her death, told her that her mother had successfully sought several other abortions, but that this one had done her in. But I can't find anything in the Pittsburgh papers other than an obituary: no investigation, no arrests. Supposedly her husband was an industrialist, but I googled him and can't find anything. Would her high profile husband have hushed the abortion up? Or would the high status have made the story too juicy for the press to resist? I'd put Clara in the "probable abortion death" category.
Ruth Irene Friedl, Denver, August 21, 1929. NOW's site said that pregnancy was life-threatening for Ruth, but they don't specify why, nor do they say why she was denied an abortion. NOW says that Ruth drank an herbal abortifacient and died. No clue as to where the story came from.
Pauline Roberson Shirley, Arizona, hemorrhage, August 22, 1940. Again, no further information available about sources.
It really ticks me off that I get prochoicers accusing me of just making things up, when I cite my sources, but they just take these stories at face value from abortion advocacy sources without so much as a single cite of a single source document. I'll take four of my deaths at random (by clicking on the Memorial graphic at the bottom of my RealChoice pages) to give you a comparison:
Sharonda Rowe: District of Columbia Certificate of Death, File # 81-6576
Betty Damato: Rocky Mountain News 12/4/81
Luz Rodriguez: "Clinic head faces complaints," Arizona Republic July 15, 1998; "History of trouble at clinics," Arizona Republic, January 17, 1999
Ruth Montero: Miami Herald 1-5-83; Obstetrics & Gynecology September 1986; CDC Abortion Surveillance 1982; Florida Today 6-1-83
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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They listed a collection illegal abortion deaths, one of which I know from original source documents was a miscarriage death, not an induced abortion. I have the othera listed in my Cemetery of Choice, but I really hate having some of them there when I can't verify the stories as being from any more reliable source than one I know is wrong on 1 out of 7.
The four I can't find any verification on are:
Vivian Campbell, Pittsburgh area, May 6, 1950, mother of the late Pittsburgh police chief Gwendolyn J. "Gwen" Elliott. Everything I've found says that Gwen found out her mother had really died from an illegal abortion when she got her death certificate years later. One story says that the death certificate said "spontaneous abortion" (which is a miscarriage), the other story says the death certificate read "abortion (?)" -- which could be an induced abortion or a miscarriage. Going just by the sources I can find, then, Vivian is a definite unconfirmed, most likely actually being a miscarriage death mistakenly blamed on a criminal abortion by a shocked adult child who didn't realize that "abortion" is the medical term for a miscarriage.
Clara Bell Duvall, Pittsburgh, March 27, 1929. In this one, the woman's daughter states that as an adult her older sister, who spent time with their mother in the hospital prior to her death, told her that her mother had successfully sought several other abortions, but that this one had done her in. But I can't find anything in the Pittsburgh papers other than an obituary: no investigation, no arrests. Supposedly her husband was an industrialist, but I googled him and can't find anything. Would her high profile husband have hushed the abortion up? Or would the high status have made the story too juicy for the press to resist? I'd put Clara in the "probable abortion death" category.
Ruth Irene Friedl, Denver, August 21, 1929. NOW's site said that pregnancy was life-threatening for Ruth, but they don't specify why, nor do they say why she was denied an abortion. NOW says that Ruth drank an herbal abortifacient and died. No clue as to where the story came from.
Pauline Roberson Shirley, Arizona, hemorrhage, August 22, 1940. Again, no further information available about sources.
It really ticks me off that I get prochoicers accusing me of just making things up, when I cite my sources, but they just take these stories at face value from abortion advocacy sources without so much as a single cite of a single source document. I'll take four of my deaths at random (by clicking on the Memorial graphic at the bottom of my RealChoice pages) to give you a comparison:
Sharonda Rowe: District of Columbia Certificate of Death, File # 81-6576
Betty Damato: Rocky Mountain News 12/4/81
Luz Rodriguez: "Clinic head faces complaints," Arizona Republic July 15, 1998; "History of trouble at clinics," Arizona Republic, January 17, 1999
Ruth Montero: Miami Herald 1-5-83; Obstetrics & Gynecology September 1986; CDC Abortion Surveillance 1982; Florida Today 6-1-83
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Blogger problem or hotmail problem?
I'm suddenly not getting email notifications when people post comments, which is a real problem since I've been infected with trolls since the election.
I've very prochoice about aborting trolls from my blog, and am being technologically thwarted. Any ideas?
I've very prochoice about aborting trolls from my blog, and am being technologically thwarted. Any ideas?
And so it begins: Man arrested for wearing McCain t-shirt
Man arrested for wearing McCain/Palin t-shirt, to the jubilant cheers of Obama supporters.
First they came for Joe the Plumber.
Can some of you understand now why we find this man and his worshippers frightening? He isn't even in the White House yet, and you can get arrested merely for wearing an opposition t-shirt.
Is this what you wanted when you voted for him?
Sadly, in many cases I think the answer was yes. It certainly was on that Philadelphia street.
Were a guy in an Obama shirt being arrested in a McCain victory celebration, I get the feeling that people would be asking, "What'd he do?" I know I'd be asking the guy with the camera if he'd seen what the guy did that he was getting arrested for, and if I'd been told, "As far as I can tell, just for wearing the t-shirt," I'd have been trying to raise an outcry from the crowd against the arrest. This crowd seems content with the fact that somebody in an opposition t-shirt was the first to be rounded up for the re-education camps.
HT: Hyscience
First they came for Joe the Plumber.
Can some of you understand now why we find this man and his worshippers frightening? He isn't even in the White House yet, and you can get arrested merely for wearing an opposition t-shirt.
Is this what you wanted when you voted for him?
Sadly, in many cases I think the answer was yes. It certainly was on that Philadelphia street.
Were a guy in an Obama shirt being arrested in a McCain victory celebration, I get the feeling that people would be asking, "What'd he do?" I know I'd be asking the guy with the camera if he'd seen what the guy did that he was getting arrested for, and if I'd been told, "As far as I can tell, just for wearing the t-shirt," I'd have been trying to raise an outcry from the crowd against the arrest. This crowd seems content with the fact that somebody in an opposition t-shirt was the first to be rounded up for the re-education camps.
HT: Hyscience
Abortion in the 1950s
One odd thing is that for all that the 1950s is viewed as a sexually repressed era, it's the only decade in the entire pre-legalization era of the 20th Century that didn't follow the trend of rapidly declining abortion mortality:
As you can see, the downward trend slowed, then reversed itself, before the fall resumed at around 1960. I'm wondering if there was some change in the data collection during that period. The Pill wasn't introduced yet, so we weren't looking at a Pill-provoked increase in sexual activity leading to an increase in unintended pregnancies. Thalidomide and Rubella weren't yet on the radar to be leading to a surge in eugenic abortions with a resulting surge in maternal deaths from those abortions. Any other theories?
While we ponder that, we can look at some examples of this, for now, inexplicable blip in the otherwise consistently improving maternal mortality:
1950
Vivian Campbell: What little I know about her came from a National Organization for Women web site that, predictably, doesn't cite its sources. We're just supposed to take their word for it.
Joy Joy, the unmarried mother of a 6-year-old child, bled to death.
1952
Isabell Cuda was a married mother.
Betty Hellman got pregnant by another man while her husband was stationed overseas.
1953
Joyce Chorney found a doctor to perform the abortion that killed her.
1954
Betty Ladel evidently went to a naturopath for her fatal abortion.
Gertrude Pinsky was found dead in a raid on an abortion ring run by several doctors and other medical professionals.
Ozelia Skains died at the hands of a chiropractor.
Virginia Watson had been on the Olympic swimming team with Esther Williams, and had sought an abortion to try to have a similar career in film.
1955
Joyce Johnson died from an abortion performed by prochoice icon Harvey Karman in a motel room.
Doris Ostreicher was an heiress whose mother arranged an illegal abortion for her.
Jacqueline Smith died when her boyfriend arranged for a scrub nurse to perform her abortion. They cut her body up, wrapped the pieces in Christmas paper, and threw them away in public trash cans.
1956
Mary Davies died during an abortion by Dr. Robert Spencer, a hero of the prochoice movement.
1957
Alice Kimberly went to a veterinarian for her illegal abortion.
1958
Georgia Lee Cody died after an abortion by an unknown perpetrator.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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As you can see, the downward trend slowed, then reversed itself, before the fall resumed at around 1960. I'm wondering if there was some change in the data collection during that period. The Pill wasn't introduced yet, so we weren't looking at a Pill-provoked increase in sexual activity leading to an increase in unintended pregnancies. Thalidomide and Rubella weren't yet on the radar to be leading to a surge in eugenic abortions with a resulting surge in maternal deaths from those abortions. Any other theories?
While we ponder that, we can look at some examples of this, for now, inexplicable blip in the otherwise consistently improving maternal mortality:
1950
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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My letter to Senator Casey
I am fortunate enough as a Pennsylvania resident to have as one of my Senators the son of prolife stalwart Robert Casey Sr.
This is the letter I have written to him:
I urge all of you, prolife and prochoice, to write to your own Senators in a similar vein. FOCA is not a benign legislation that would protect "choice". It would strike down parental involvement laws, informed consent laws, conscience clauses, waiting periods, health and safety regulations, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, limits on post-viability abortions, and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act -- laws that even the majority of prochoice citizens recognize as reasonable and prudent means of protecting both vulnerable pregnant women and their unborn children.
Check here to find out how to write to your Senator.
And think how quickly the abortion lobby toadies would drop FOCA if faced with the possibility of Lime 5 being read live on C-SPAN.
In fact, the more I think about it, my response to the prospect of FOCA being re-introduced is "Go ahead. Make my day!" Give us another chance to expose the abortion lobby for the vultures they are.
This is the letter I have written to him:
Dear Senator Casey:
As I'm sure you're aware, President-Elect Obama has promised the abortion lobby that his first act as President would be to sign their dream legislation, the so-called Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would endanger women and teens and increase abortions in this country by at least 20% by negating all the laws we have passed over the years to reduce abortions.
Of course, Obama can not sign FOCA unless it is first placed on his desk. And that is where we are relying on you.
Your father was a great man, a man of tremendous integrity and courage, and we are counting on you to continue his brave, inspiring defense of life in the face of party opposition.
Should there be a danger of this terrible bill actually passing, I beg of you to consider a filibuster. Simply read aloud from "Lime 5", entering it into Congressional Record as the true legacy of Roe vs. Wade.
Prolife citizens realize the degree to which we are depending on you. Prochoice citizens of good will, if educated as to how radical and dangerous FOCA is, would likewise oppose it. And even those citizens who lack the understanding of how FOCA would play out still need the more knowledgeable, such as yourself, to protect their interests, especially the safety of these ill-informed citizens and their wives, daughters, sisters, friends, and neighbors.
Thank you for your kind attention.
I urge all of you, prolife and prochoice, to write to your own Senators in a similar vein. FOCA is not a benign legislation that would protect "choice". It would strike down parental involvement laws, informed consent laws, conscience clauses, waiting periods, health and safety regulations, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, limits on post-viability abortions, and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act -- laws that even the majority of prochoice citizens recognize as reasonable and prudent means of protecting both vulnerable pregnant women and their unborn children.
Check here to find out how to write to your Senator.
And think how quickly the abortion lobby toadies would drop FOCA if faced with the possibility of Lime 5 being read live on C-SPAN.
In fact, the more I think about it, my response to the prospect of FOCA being re-introduced is "Go ahead. Make my day!" Give us another chance to expose the abortion lobby for the vultures they are.
"abortion 40's"
Whoever came searching for this ended up with information about abortion in the 1940s, when I think they were probably looking for women who had abortions in their 40's.
So, without further ado:
Age 40:
Sophia Hartozinski died of an illegal abortion in 1923.
Mary Ann Page died of an illegal abortion in 1940.
Luz Rodriguez died from a safe and legal abortion in 1986.
Pauline Roberson Shirley, according to an unverified NOW report, died form a self-induced abortion in 1940.
Age 41:
Mary Bradley died from a safe, legal abortion in 1985.
Minnie Lathan died from a safe, legal abortion in 1978.
Allegra Roseberry was browbeaten into an unwanted "therapeutic abortion" in 1988.
Age 42:
Judy Roe was killed by a safe, legal abortion in 1970.
Stella Saenz was killed by her legal "therapeutic" abortion in 1968.
Age 43:
Mary Pena bled to death from a safe, legal abortion in 1984.
Terri Roe died from a safe, legal abortion in 1991.
Gloria Small died from what she thought was a safe, legal abortion in 1978.
Age 44:
Annie Allison died from a criminal abortion in 1923.
Margaret Muscia died from an illegal abortion in 1926.
Audrey Roe died from a safe, legal abortion in 1971.
Dorothy Roe died from a safe, legal abortion in 1973.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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So, without further ado:
Age 40:
Age 41:
Age 42:
Age 43:
Age 44:
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Down syndrome gets positive press in the Washington Post!
A Leap of Love
HT: MommyLife
PS. The article gives a clue as to Barbara's legitimate ex-hippie credentials. Her daughters' middle names are Sunshine and Moonbeam.
Looking ahead, Barbara and Tripp Curtis worried that Jonny, who has Down syndrome, would be alone as his siblings grew up and left home. And so they adopted Jesse, Daniel and, finally, Justin. All three have Down syndrome.
....
For many parents, a diagnosis of Down syndrome can be overwhelming as they face the likelihood that the child will struggle to live independently and require intensive medical, financial and social support. Most prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome lead to abortion.
Yet almost 200 families are on a waiting list to adopt a child with Down syndrome in the United States. Others are seeking to adopt such children overseas. Many of those interested in adoption, such as the Curtises, have a child with the genetic condition; some are special-education teachers or motivated by religious beliefs or idealism.
HT: MommyLife
PS. The article gives a clue as to Barbara's legitimate ex-hippie credentials. Her daughters' middle names are Sunshine and Moonbeam.
1999: Safe, legal abortion kills cheerleader
"Yvonne" was a 19-year-old student who died from sepsis on November 9, 1999 in Marrero, Louisiana, after undergoing a safe and legal abortion. She had been an All-American cheerleader and a member of the National Honor Society.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
1988: Abortion turns fatal for young Georgia woman
Demetrice Andrews, age 22, died from multiple organ failure at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta on November 9, 1988.
She had submitted to a safe, legal abortion on October 17, became progressively ill afterward, and been admitted to Grady.
It is ironic that Demetrice was admitted to Grady to be treated for abortion complications. Another woman, Jacqueline Reynolds, had died just two years earlier, from complications of anesthesia administered for an abortion performed at Grady.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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She had submitted to a safe, legal abortion on October 17, became progressively ill afterward, and been admitted to Grady.
It is ironic that Demetrice was admitted to Grady to be treated for abortion complications. Another woman, Jacqueline Reynolds, had died just two years earlier, from complications of anesthesia administered for an abortion performed at Grady.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Roundup: Demographic winter, Screwtape on stage, and more
There has never in human history been economic growth paired with population decline. But our Politically Correct ideal is worldwide population decline. Where will this lead us?
HT: Values Voter News
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Screwtape on Stage gives us a glimpse of what the film version might be like. And it removes my primary objection, which was that portraying The Patient would reduce the viewer's ability to project himself into the role.
HT: Is Anybody There?
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ScrappleFace brings us the latest news: Unnamed McCain Aide Puts Blame for Loss on Self:
“We worked for two people whose character and integrity were their chief positives,” the now-unemployed former insider said, “Frankly, the average mercenary political consultant like me doesn’t have a lot of experience with those kind of folks. So, we really had no clue how to run their campaign. As a result, we got spanked.”
“The important thing for people to remember,” he added, “is that win or lose, the consultants still get paid.”
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Americans United for Life has started a Fight FOCA campaign with an online petition. Which, I think, is primarily good for raising awareness.
FOCA would not only eliminate every single piece of legislation in the past 35 years to reduce abortion and protect women and children from seedy abortionists, it would go beyond Roe into mandating that health care professionals participate in abortion. The laws that would be invalidated have reduced abortions in this country by 20%.
The really dangerous thing about FOCA is how the wording is deliberately deceptive. If you read "The Gulag Archipelago", you will be familiar with Solzhenitsyn's illustrations of how courts are able to "interpret" laws to their own ends, even laws that seem fairly bland and inoffensive, laws that seem common-sense. ALL's analysis takes into consideration how other cases (that the writers of FOCA were well aware of and taking advantage of) will impact implementation of this act.
This is NOT a prochoice bill. It is a rabidly pro-abortion bill disguised as a pro-choice bill.
Though, personally, I think the best way to fight FOCA is to find one brave Senator -- preferably a female Democrat, and it doesn't even have to be a prolife Democrat, since this bill is proabortion and not prochoice -- to filibuster, preferably by reading aloud from Lime 5. Let them get an earful of what they'd be promoting in voting for this egregious law.
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Obama Hears a Who calls for prayer for the scales to fall from Obama's eyes, and for him to recognize the humanity of vulnerable unborn children and special-needs newborns. I agree with the call for prayer but disagree with the optimism. Obama's conversion from proponent of abortion and infanticide to defender of the defenseless would require not only an act of God, but an act of Obama. And I've not seen a lot of evidence that this guy recognizes the existence of any god but himself. Every wondrous conversion in history has been of somebody who recognized from the outset that he was not God -- even Nebuchadnezzar recognized that the God of the Hebrews did in fact exist. Obama's truly monumental ego ("A ray of light will shine...") makes old Nebuchadnezzar look like a paragon of humility in comparison. Still, it never hurts to try. And the image of Barack Obama on all fours in the wilderness eating grass for seven years has a certain appeal. Is it wrong to pray for this guy to get his comeuppance?
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News on the stem cell front. Adult stem cells (that don't require that we kill a defenseless fellow human being to get them) have been successful recently in treating Parkinson's disease, Crohn's disease, spinal cord injury, diabetes, and heart attacks. Repair Stem Cell Institute is a clearinghouse of current clinical trials and treatment centers. My sister's cancer was treated successfully with adult stem cells. This is something the MSM is keeping hidden, people, because it paints their pet project of embryonic stem cell research in a negative light.
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And check out Jill Stanek's Sunday Funny.
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Lately added: Gribbet's Word has a great Ann Coulter quote, and an addition:
In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president. - Ann Coulter
Please..in honour of your conduct over the last eight years, in sincere and honest recognition of your treatment of conservatives in general, and the President specifically, allow me to reciprocate. -- Sonnabend
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Second amendment rights clarified:
HT: Hillbilly White Trash
Dilbert sums up the Republican campaign
For those who need text:
Dilbert is addressing a meeting: "Our project plan will follow the usual arc. Phase one will be unwarranted optimism supported by delusions of competence. In phase two, the obstructionists will slither out of their lairs and try to smother our dreams. Ignorance and envy will fuel rumors that get repeated until they morph into common knowledge. Resources will be allocated based on misinformation and favoritism. And requirements will drift until the project is both undesirable and impossible. This brings us to the second week."
Asok speaks for all of us, I think, when he replies: "I want my unwarranted optimism back."
Saturday, November 08, 2008
An encouraging sign
I'm still getting a record number of page views, many of them looking for "third trimester abortion" "post-viability abortion" and "barack obama" -- this latter in combination with one of the first two or with "infanticide".
So people are still curious.
Somebody came searching for how many third trimester abortions are performed in the US. The Centers for Disease Control are very careful not to collect that information. They only repot that in 2004 (the last year for which they've released data) there were 8,365 reported abortions at 22 weeks and greater. This is post-viability (since a 22 week baby has a survival chance of up to 10%), but two weeks short of the third trimester.
Let me gather all the stuff in one place:
A question about born alive babies and criminal charges explains how doctors could let born babies die without being charged with murder.
Abortion for the life of the mother examines the validity of "maternal health" as a justification for abortion -- particularly late abortions.
Abortion Survivor: Gianna Jessen, who survived an attempt to abort her at 7 1/2 months, speaks on her mission.
And just why are abortions being done so late that babies can be born alive in the first place? An interview with the psychiatrist who reviewed the records subpoenaed from George Tiller for post-viability abortions he was performing.
Ana Rosa versus the National Abortion Federation looks at one baby who survived a 32-week abortion -- minus her right arm.
Barack Obama and the born-alive babies juxtaposes Obama's words with real life cases.
Checking the facts on Obama and abortion sums it up in a few paragraphs.
Christin Gilbert was a healthy teen with Down syndrome who died from a third-trimester abortion justified on "health" grounds.
Denise Montoya, a teenager from Texas, died from a third-trimester abortion.
First: Call for more information looks at what little data we have on abortions done near or after viability.
Funeral scheduled for Baby Shanice tells of a baby born alive in a Florida clinic, put in a biohazard bag, and tossed onto the roof.
Late abortion lies: They're only done for health reasons compares abortion lobby claims to what investigators have found.
Lou Ann Herron bled to death from a third-trimester abortion she was seeking because she was getting divorced.
Magdalena Rodriguez bled to death from a third-trimester abortion, though it's unclear if she or her abortionist realized her pregnancy was so far advanced.
Midtown Hospital's late abortion scandal looks at a hospital caught doing illegal third trimester abortions in Georgia.
More born alive babies is self-explanatory.
More born-alive babies and their fates is fairly self-explanatory.
Nicholette's Nightmare tells of a teen who changed her mind about having a third-trimester abortion, but was bullied by clinic staff.
Obama comments, I respond has audio of Obama's questions and comments for sponsors of legislation to protect babies born in post-viability abortions.
Obama, McCain, and "health" looks at how the abortion lobby defines "health" and gives examples of real post-viability abortions.
Planned Parenthood admits to live births features an undercover video by Students for Life, and looks at viability for babies of various ages.
Post-viability abortions in your state introduces visitors to Abortion Clinics Online and their ads for abortions into the third trimester.
Pro-choice/pro-child: Baby Rowan is the story of how Angele's cries for an ambulance for her baby, born alive in an abortion clinic toilet, were ignored.
Steve Brigham and Patient Millie tells of a woman who nearly died from a third trimester abortion in New York.
The ad ABC doesn't want you to see shows the NRLC ad ABC refused to carry.
Third trimester abortion and the law looks state by state.
"This baby won't stop breathing!" is about the Waddill case, in which a doctor got away with strangling a 32-week baby in front of several NICU nurses and a pediatrician because of an obscure legal definition of "death".
Unintended late abortions looks at cases in which abortions were initiated on babies that were post-viability, unknown to their mothers.
Where does Obama say he supports third trimester abortions? looks at the two different statements Obama made about under what conditions he supports third trimester abortions.
So people are still curious.
Somebody came searching for how many third trimester abortions are performed in the US. The Centers for Disease Control are very careful not to collect that information. They only repot that in 2004 (the last year for which they've released data) there were 8,365 reported abortions at 22 weeks and greater. This is post-viability (since a 22 week baby has a survival chance of up to 10%), but two weeks short of the third trimester.
Let me gather all the stuff in one place:
Abortion deaths in 1989
The Centers for Disease Control deigned to count the following abortion deaths in their most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary, for 2004:
Today I'll look at deaths in 1989. The CDC counts 12 legal and 1 illegal.
I have 14 legal and 1 illegal. But one of my legal deaths was related to an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, a death that the CDC refuses to lay on the abortionist's door regardless of how irresponsible his failure to diagnose the ectopic was. This means that there is at least one legal abortion death that the CDC failed to so much as notice.
Eurice Agbagaa, a 26-year-old immigrant from Ghana, went to Abram Zelikman for a safe, legal abortion on January 7, 1989. Despite heavy bleeding, Zelikman left for the day, leaving Eurice in the care of an untrained receptionist. She died of blood loss.
Charisse Ards was 20 years old, single, a mother of one. She died July 28, 1989, from a pelvic infection after a legal abortion.
Brenda Banks was 35 years old and 13 weeks pregnant when she went to Hillcrest Women's Surgi-Center in Washington, DC, for a safe, legal abortion. She bled to death.
Marla Anne Cardamone (pictured) was 19 years old when she was browbeaten into her fatal abortion by a social worker at Magee Women's Hospital in Pittsburgh.
Margaret Clodfelter was 19 years old when she had a safe and legal abortion at Richmond Medical Center For Women on June 2, 1989. She developed an infection and died, leaving behind a husband and a one-year-old son.
Glenda Davis, age 31, mother of two, said that she underwent a safe and legal abortion performed by Robert Hanson at Aaron Family Planning March 11, 1989. She bled to death.
Synthia Dennard bled to death from a combination abortion and tubal ligation -- sold to her when she was not actually pregnant.
Gladyss Estanislao was found dead on the bathroom floor near her college classroom after her abortionist failed to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy. We know that the CDC did not count her, because they decided to count all ectopic pregnancy deaths separately, even if the failure to make a timely diagnosis was due to an abortionist's errors.
Glenna Jean Fox, age 17, bled to death after a second-trimester abortion.
Laura France, 33-year-old mother of four, was found dead in her garage, where she had attempted an abortion with an air compressor.
Debra Gray died of anesthesia complications at Maryland's infamous Hillview abortion mill.
Karretu Jabbie, a 24-year-old woman from West Africa, underwent an incomplete abortion and bled to death on November 2, 1989.
Catherine Pierce languished in a coma for seven months before leaving her 11-year-old daughter motherless.
Erica Kae Richardson was brought for a secret abortion by her aunt.
Debra Walton, age 35, died of septic shock from her abortion.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Today I'll look at deaths in 1989. The CDC counts 12 legal and 1 illegal.
I have 14 legal and 1 illegal. But one of my legal deaths was related to an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, a death that the CDC refuses to lay on the abortionist's door regardless of how irresponsible his failure to diagnose the ectopic was. This means that there is at least one legal abortion death that the CDC failed to so much as notice.
Eurice Agbagaa, a 26-year-old immigrant from Ghana, went to Abram Zelikman for a safe, legal abortion on January 7, 1989. Despite heavy bleeding, Zelikman left for the day, leaving Eurice in the care of an untrained receptionist. She died of blood loss.
Charisse Ards was 20 years old, single, a mother of one. She died July 28, 1989, from a pelvic infection after a legal abortion.
Brenda Banks was 35 years old and 13 weeks pregnant when she went to Hillcrest Women's Surgi-Center in Washington, DC, for a safe, legal abortion. She bled to death.
Marla Anne Cardamone (pictured) was 19 years old when she was browbeaten into her fatal abortion by a social worker at Magee Women's Hospital in Pittsburgh.Margaret Clodfelter was 19 years old when she had a safe and legal abortion at Richmond Medical Center For Women on June 2, 1989. She developed an infection and died, leaving behind a husband and a one-year-old son.
Glenda Davis, age 31, mother of two, said that she underwent a safe and legal abortion performed by Robert Hanson at Aaron Family Planning March 11, 1989. She bled to death.
Synthia Dennard bled to death from a combination abortion and tubal ligation -- sold to her when she was not actually pregnant.
Gladyss Estanislao was found dead on the bathroom floor near her college classroom after her abortionist failed to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy. We know that the CDC did not count her, because they decided to count all ectopic pregnancy deaths separately, even if the failure to make a timely diagnosis was due to an abortionist's errors.
Glenna Jean Fox, age 17, bled to death after a second-trimester abortion.
Laura France, 33-year-old mother of four, was found dead in her garage, where she had attempted an abortion with an air compressor.
Debra Gray died of anesthesia complications at Maryland's infamous Hillview abortion mill.
Karretu Jabbie, a 24-year-old woman from West Africa, underwent an incomplete abortion and bled to death on November 2, 1989.
Catherine Pierce languished in a coma for seven months before leaving her 11-year-old daughter motherless.
Erica Kae Richardson was brought for a secret abortion by her aunt.
Debra Walton, age 35, died of septic shock from her abortion.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
1994: Toddler left motherless by safe, legal abortion
Eighteen-year-old Christine Mora was taken off life support at noon on November 8, 1994. She was declared dead, and her 18-month-old son was left motherless.
It all started when Christine underwent a safe, legal abortion at Doctors' Surgical Center in Cypress, California -- an FPA (Family Planning Associates Medical Group) facility. She was about 17 weeks pregnant and a high school senior. The date was November 2, 1994.
A nurse practitioner inserted laminaria to dilate Christine's cervix. Christine went home, and returned the following day for the abortion. Dr. Thomas Grubbs performed the D&E and sent Christine to recovery.
Preparing to leave the clinic, Christine fell while unattended. Grubbs was called to check her, and noticed slurred speech and inappropriate responses. Somebody called an ambulance, and Christine was taken to La Palma Hospital, where she spent several hours in the emergency room, attended by her friend Robert. When Christine's father was finally located, Robert had to tell him about the abortion as well as about the hospitalization.
Christine was admitted to the intensive care unit, where her condition deteriorated until she was finally taken off life support at noon on November 8, and pronounced dead. The autopsy showed acute septicemia and hemorrage in the brain, along with some small cervical lacerations. It also revealed that Christine had a congenital heart defect called "foramen ovale," in which a connection between the two sides of her heart had not closed at birth as it was supposed to do. Her family filed a wrongful death suit.
The attorneys for Grubbs, Allred, and FPA claimed that Christine's heart defect, not the abortion, caused her death. But an expert reviewing the case for Christine's family said that the care provided to Christine at the FPA facility "fell below applicable standard" and that the "breach of standard care was the direct cause of Miss Mora's death." In particular, he faulted FPB because:
The expert concluded that the amniotic fluid entered Christine's bloodstream through the cervical lacerations, causing her death. Oddly, Dr. David Grimes, the expert defending FPA, agreed that Christine's death was due to an amniotic fluid embolism and not to her heart defect. Grimes, however, claimed that the amniotic flued had entered Christine's bloodstream when the placenta had detached, and not through the cervical lacerations. Grimes considered three minutes to be adequate time for a 17-week abortion. (Grimes had also spoken on behalf of notorious California abortionist Leo Keneally.)
The lawsuit had gone to trial, with Allred himself taking the stand, when prolifers discovered that Allred was being sued and complained that the medical board and news media were ignoring the death. As soon as the prolifers began agitating, FPA quickly settled with the family, stipulating confidentiality as part of the settlement.
Christine wasn't the only young woman to die from abortion at a facility owned by FPA head honcho Edward Campbell Allred. Others include:
Allred's facilities remain members of the National Abortion Federation despite these deaths.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
It all started when Christine underwent a safe, legal abortion at Doctors' Surgical Center in Cypress, California -- an FPA (Family Planning Associates Medical Group) facility. She was about 17 weeks pregnant and a high school senior. The date was November 2, 1994.
A nurse practitioner inserted laminaria to dilate Christine's cervix. Christine went home, and returned the following day for the abortion. Dr. Thomas Grubbs performed the D&E and sent Christine to recovery.
Preparing to leave the clinic, Christine fell while unattended. Grubbs was called to check her, and noticed slurred speech and inappropriate responses. Somebody called an ambulance, and Christine was taken to La Palma Hospital, where she spent several hours in the emergency room, attended by her friend Robert. When Christine's father was finally located, Robert had to tell him about the abortion as well as about the hospitalization.
Christine was admitted to the intensive care unit, where her condition deteriorated until she was finally taken off life support at noon on November 8, and pronounced dead. The autopsy showed acute septicemia and hemorrage in the brain, along with some small cervical lacerations. It also revealed that Christine had a congenital heart defect called "foramen ovale," in which a connection between the two sides of her heart had not closed at birth as it was supposed to do. Her family filed a wrongful death suit.
The attorneys for Grubbs, Allred, and FPA claimed that Christine's heart defect, not the abortion, caused her death. But an expert reviewing the case for Christine's family said that the care provided to Christine at the FPA facility "fell below applicable standard" and that the "breach of standard care was the direct cause of Miss Mora's death." In particular, he faulted FPB because:
- Grubbs had never examined Christine prior to the surgery. In fact, he'd had no contact with her at all prior to beginning her abortion.
- "The anesthesia record says that Dr. Grubbs did the entire extraction procedure in three minutes (emphasis in original)," and that this haste caused the cervical lacerations.
The expert concluded that the amniotic fluid entered Christine's bloodstream through the cervical lacerations, causing her death. Oddly, Dr. David Grimes, the expert defending FPA, agreed that Christine's death was due to an amniotic fluid embolism and not to her heart defect. Grimes, however, claimed that the amniotic flued had entered Christine's bloodstream when the placenta had detached, and not through the cervical lacerations. Grimes considered three minutes to be adequate time for a 17-week abortion. (Grimes had also spoken on behalf of notorious California abortionist Leo Keneally.)
The lawsuit had gone to trial, with Allred himself taking the stand, when prolifers discovered that Allred was being sued and complained that the medical board and news media were ignoring the death. As soon as the prolifers began agitating, FPA quickly settled with the family, stipulating confidentiality as part of the settlement.
Christine wasn't the only young woman to die from abortion at a facility owned by FPA head honcho Edward Campbell Allred. Others include:
- Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
- Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
- Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
- Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
- Laniece Dorsey, age 17, 1986
- Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
- Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
- Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
- Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
- Kimberly Neil, 2000
- Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004
Allred's facilities remain members of the National Abortion Federation despite these deaths.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Open Eyes
This is an email from a Daily Devotion list:
We all have blind spots. It's so much easier to see other people's blind spots.
During the election, I prayed that God would show us all what we had done to deserve Barack Obama, that we might repent.
I've been convicted of being too meek, too afraid to speak out unless it was "the proper venue". That meekness meant that children in a village in Sierra Leone went months longer than necessary waiting for a well -- because I wouldn't speak boldly. Angele got to witness the unseemly spectacle of a hundred million of her fellow citizens dancing on her child's grave because I wouldn't speak boldly.
There are times for meekness and times for boldness. I tried being meek for over a quarter of a century, and it's accomplished diddly.
Open Eyes
2 KINGS 6:17 NKJ
17 And Elisha prayed, and said, "Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
What we see with our physical eyes is not all that's happening.
Spiritual forces are active around us. Unless God "opens our eyes" we're in the dark to what's really happening.
Of course, it shouldn't be necessary for us to "see" into the spirit realm to believe what God has said, such as that His angels would keep charge of us always to protect us.
ACTS 26:18 NKJ
18 'to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.'
When God told Paul what his calling was, the first step mentioned was "to open their eyes . . . that they may receive."
For us to receive all that God has provided for us, we must also have "our eyes opened."
Our prayer needs to be that of the Psalmist.
PSALM 119:18 NKJ
18 Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.
SAY THIS: Lord, open my eyes. Give me understanding and insight.
We all have blind spots. It's so much easier to see other people's blind spots.
During the election, I prayed that God would show us all what we had done to deserve Barack Obama, that we might repent.
I've been convicted of being too meek, too afraid to speak out unless it was "the proper venue". That meekness meant that children in a village in Sierra Leone went months longer than necessary waiting for a well -- because I wouldn't speak boldly. Angele got to witness the unseemly spectacle of a hundred million of her fellow citizens dancing on her child's grave because I wouldn't speak boldly.
There are times for meekness and times for boldness. I tried being meek for over a quarter of a century, and it's accomplished diddly.
Ugly truths about people I thought were my friends
And that I thought were Christians.
When my "friends" on FaceBook -- people I went to CHURCH with in Korea. People I attended BIBLE STUDY with -- were celebrating Obama's win, I was crying in a hotel lobby. I told my friends why I was crying. I told them about my friend who watched her baby die in an abortion clinic toilet because staff refused to call an ambulance for them. I pointed out that Barack Obama had voted four times to stand in solidarity with refusing babies care. And I asked for some sensitivity, that not everybody saw this as a reason to celebrate.
This is a response I got:
All I asked them for was a little sensitivity, to realize how much pain my friend is in, how much I'm hurting for her, and how much it's hurting her and the people who love her to see such celebration of the man who held out so often that what was done to her and her baby was right and just.
That's it. I tried being gentle and "sensitive". I tried to gently and gradually introduce them to the idea that women are being browbeaten into unwanted abortions, that they're grieving and sometimes killing themselves over it.
This woman has seen me worried, crying, and asking for prayers for Angele. This woman has heard me celebrate when Ashli McCall's book came out, and has heard me tell Ashli's story. This woman knows about my annual phone call to comfort the Cardamone family, on the anniversary of the day their daughter died from a botched abortion she didn't want and had been browbeaten into.
None of that softened her heart at all.
And she babbles about babies dying from other causes -- I was the one, not her, who spearheaded the effort to raise money for a well for an African village, to keep babies from dying from lack of clean water. We needed $3,000. It should have taken us a couple of weeks to raise that kind of money, given how much discretionary income we all had. None of us was hurting for cash. And it broke my heart every Communion Sunday, when we took up the special offering for the well, and the offerings were paltry. I bit my tongue. I didn't scold the congregation after opening those envelopes. I didn't say, "I know full well that three of you went to Seoul for hair weaves this month at $120 to $220 a pop, and the biggest donation that wasn't MINE was for $20. Are you honestly telling me that these kids' lives aren't worth as much as your hair weaves? I know three of you who get manicures every week that cost more than the biggest donation in here that wasn't mine. You can't forgo one manicure a month to save children's lives?"
The combined contributions from the 30 other congregants -- 20 of whom were well-off English teachers such as myself -- was often less than what I was putting in myself. I would put in an amount equal to my biggest discretionary purchase the previous month, the biggest purchase I made that wasn't ordinary groceries or paying my utility bills. If I'd given myself a big treat, I gave an equal treat to the kids in Sierra Leone who were waiting for a well. I wanted to give more, but the pastor counseled patience -- to let them be convicted on their own, and give on their own. He counseled patience, to share the opportunity to be generous rather than hogging it up and denying the others a chance to give. It was this counsel that kept me from saying, "Screw it. I'm not waiting for these people to wake up while babies are dying for lack of water," and just donating enough to put us over the top.
Maybe I should have done that. Maybe I should have stood up for the Well Update and said, "The donations we get are less than what many of you are spending a week on IMAX tickets, manicures, or purses. These kids are dying for lack of water. I'm putting in the rest of the money myself, and y'all can have another fund raiser when you find a cause more important than your hair, nails, and wardrobe." Because being gentle and patient did squat but leave that village in Sierra Leone without a well for months longer than necessary.
We had a donation jar on the snack table. I wanted to forgo snacks on Communion Sunday, and donate the earmarked snack money to the Well Fund. I was voted down. We met for pre-service prayers, and for Bible Study, in coffee shops, spending $5 to $8 each on a beverage. I wanted to forgo that on Communion Sunday, to donate the money instead to the Well Fund. I was voted down on that, too. It was asking too much, it was putting MY conviction on others who were not similarly convicted. So I'd be in those coffee shops, drinking my $5 cocoa, telling myself, "I'm buying a spot in a coffee shop so unbelievers can see Christians excited about the Bible" and trying not to think of how much better it would be to put that $5 in the Well Fund. I bit my tongue. I went with what the majority wanted. I let those kids go months longer than necessary without water to drink so I wouldn't make well-off Christian teachers uncomfortable with blowing all that money on beverages.
I wasn't asking anybody to take a vow of poverty. Just to once a month fast from luxury beverages and give that money to kids who were drinking filthy water. That was too much to ask. Just as some sensitivity for Angele and Rowan, to stop dancing on a child's grave, was too much to ask.
Being gentle and patient didn't work. I tried it and it was an abysmal failure. It led me to put being sensitive to the comfortable ahead of whether or not children had safe water to drink. It led me to put being sensitive to the comfortable ahead of comforting the mourning.
I don't need to fill my life with people who want me to remain silent about life and death matters while they gush over a man who lets his brother languish on $12 a year, and is okay with wrapping babies in towels and leaving them in a closet to die.
Matthew 25:40 applies to George Obama and to impoverished children in Sierra Leone and to Rowan and Shanice. And I"m not going to let anything stop me from putting the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable FIRST. I'm no longer going to leave them on a back burner until the well-off and comfortable are ready to set aside their nail buffers.
When my "friends" on FaceBook -- people I went to CHURCH with in Korea. People I attended BIBLE STUDY with -- were celebrating Obama's win, I was crying in a hotel lobby. I told my friends why I was crying. I told them about my friend who watched her baby die in an abortion clinic toilet because staff refused to call an ambulance for them. I pointed out that Barack Obama had voted four times to stand in solidarity with refusing babies care. And I asked for some sensitivity, that not everybody saw this as a reason to celebrate.
This is a response I got:
Janice sent you a message.
--------------------
(no subject)
Alright Christina, so my political decisions are none of your business. I'd suggest to you that you stay out of discussing politics with your friends, because I have pretty much lost all respect for you as an individual. How dare you write that on my page and then lauch into a debate on MY PAGE with my friends. Do that in forums Christina, where people entertain that inconsiderate garbage. And, enjoy bantering with you. I for one do not!
If you have an issue with it then you send me a message to my inbox. And, let me tell you in a more pesronal way that if you don't like the fact that I support whatever political candidate, then you don't need to be my friend. How unfortunate that a friendship or a christian sisterhood can be ruined because I think that a particular candidate is a good one.
In case you have forgotten also, I'm not American, I'm not voting. I just happen to think that historically, this is monumental. You don't have to agree, but neither do you need to throw YOUR opinion down any one's throat, or go about leaving heinous messages on people's pages. At the end of the day, there is NO candidate that will ever satisfy everyone's wishes and personal opinions. So, what are you going to do about it? NOTHING!!! That's right, the American people have voted, there's nothing you can change now. Take your anger to picket lines and rallies and try to educate people, leaving stupid messages like that on my page, are not the way to go about it, especially because you have now isolated someone who had no issues with you. In my opinion you are suggesting that you are the ONLY person in the world who cares about baies dying. It's not just from abortions Christina. There are children dying all over the world. Some from the very same war that McCain support!
s. You
are so one-sided. You focus on the next best think that will make you miserable. How sad that is that you STILL DON'T GET IT!!!!! This is why you are unhappy and miserable. But, I know that nothing that anyone says will make a difference to you. Obama could decide to pass a law in your favour tomorrow and you will find something negative to complain about. Every email, every post on your page, every rant, is about how someone somewhere, is distraught again. How sad. This is not what God created you for.
Don't bother to send me back a message, because you will be deleted as of right now. Your gall is an insult and a shame, and I'm going to pray for your soul because you are clearly a mess. You are really quite an interesting individual. Drama and issues follow you because you either create them or you build them up into something they are not! Every message, every note on your page is about some drama that's happening to someone you know. I don't think I've ever heard a positive remark come from your mouth such as "I am happy to be alive today, regardless of how the world is." You try to bring others down with you and that's unfortunate, because you clearly need positive influences in your life.
All I asked them for was a little sensitivity, to realize how much pain my friend is in, how much I'm hurting for her, and how much it's hurting her and the people who love her to see such celebration of the man who held out so often that what was done to her and her baby was right and just.
That's it. I tried being gentle and "sensitive". I tried to gently and gradually introduce them to the idea that women are being browbeaten into unwanted abortions, that they're grieving and sometimes killing themselves over it.
This woman has seen me worried, crying, and asking for prayers for Angele. This woman has heard me celebrate when Ashli McCall's book came out, and has heard me tell Ashli's story. This woman knows about my annual phone call to comfort the Cardamone family, on the anniversary of the day their daughter died from a botched abortion she didn't want and had been browbeaten into.
None of that softened her heart at all.
And she babbles about babies dying from other causes -- I was the one, not her, who spearheaded the effort to raise money for a well for an African village, to keep babies from dying from lack of clean water. We needed $3,000. It should have taken us a couple of weeks to raise that kind of money, given how much discretionary income we all had. None of us was hurting for cash. And it broke my heart every Communion Sunday, when we took up the special offering for the well, and the offerings were paltry. I bit my tongue. I didn't scold the congregation after opening those envelopes. I didn't say, "I know full well that three of you went to Seoul for hair weaves this month at $120 to $220 a pop, and the biggest donation that wasn't MINE was for $20. Are you honestly telling me that these kids' lives aren't worth as much as your hair weaves? I know three of you who get manicures every week that cost more than the biggest donation in here that wasn't mine. You can't forgo one manicure a month to save children's lives?"
The combined contributions from the 30 other congregants -- 20 of whom were well-off English teachers such as myself -- was often less than what I was putting in myself. I would put in an amount equal to my biggest discretionary purchase the previous month, the biggest purchase I made that wasn't ordinary groceries or paying my utility bills. If I'd given myself a big treat, I gave an equal treat to the kids in Sierra Leone who were waiting for a well. I wanted to give more, but the pastor counseled patience -- to let them be convicted on their own, and give on their own. He counseled patience, to share the opportunity to be generous rather than hogging it up and denying the others a chance to give. It was this counsel that kept me from saying, "Screw it. I'm not waiting for these people to wake up while babies are dying for lack of water," and just donating enough to put us over the top.
Maybe I should have done that. Maybe I should have stood up for the Well Update and said, "The donations we get are less than what many of you are spending a week on IMAX tickets, manicures, or purses. These kids are dying for lack of water. I'm putting in the rest of the money myself, and y'all can have another fund raiser when you find a cause more important than your hair, nails, and wardrobe." Because being gentle and patient did squat but leave that village in Sierra Leone without a well for months longer than necessary.
We had a donation jar on the snack table. I wanted to forgo snacks on Communion Sunday, and donate the earmarked snack money to the Well Fund. I was voted down. We met for pre-service prayers, and for Bible Study, in coffee shops, spending $5 to $8 each on a beverage. I wanted to forgo that on Communion Sunday, to donate the money instead to the Well Fund. I was voted down on that, too. It was asking too much, it was putting MY conviction on others who were not similarly convicted. So I'd be in those coffee shops, drinking my $5 cocoa, telling myself, "I'm buying a spot in a coffee shop so unbelievers can see Christians excited about the Bible" and trying not to think of how much better it would be to put that $5 in the Well Fund. I bit my tongue. I went with what the majority wanted. I let those kids go months longer than necessary without water to drink so I wouldn't make well-off Christian teachers uncomfortable with blowing all that money on beverages.
I wasn't asking anybody to take a vow of poverty. Just to once a month fast from luxury beverages and give that money to kids who were drinking filthy water. That was too much to ask. Just as some sensitivity for Angele and Rowan, to stop dancing on a child's grave, was too much to ask.
Being gentle and patient didn't work. I tried it and it was an abysmal failure. It led me to put being sensitive to the comfortable ahead of whether or not children had safe water to drink. It led me to put being sensitive to the comfortable ahead of comforting the mourning.
I don't need to fill my life with people who want me to remain silent about life and death matters while they gush over a man who lets his brother languish on $12 a year, and is okay with wrapping babies in towels and leaving them in a closet to die.
Matthew 25:40 applies to George Obama and to impoverished children in Sierra Leone and to Rowan and Shanice. And I"m not going to let anything stop me from putting the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable FIRST. I'm no longer going to leave them on a back burner until the well-off and comfortable are ready to set aside their nail buffers.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Amazing video: Gigi's Playhouse
A promotional video for a service center for people with Down syndrome and their families. I can't embed it but you can see it here.
These kids deserve better than to be wrapped in a towel and stuck in a closet to die.
These kids deserve better than to be wrapped in a towel and stuck in a closet to die.
Some good points, but not the whole picture
Chizumatic has an excellent post, well worth reading, for those of us who had hoped for better than getting Bill Ayers' sock puppet for POTUS. I heartily recommend reading the whole thing.
Overall I think (perhaps hope) he's right. But I think he has an unrealistically optimistic view of Obamatraon nature.
Gotta agree on the first part. I can't count the number of Obama supporters who called in to talk radio gushing about their man, but totally unable to give a single specific beyond "he's not a Republican" and "he inspires people". These people voted for a persona, not a person.
But will they wise up? I would like to think so. But I have my doubts. There are, after all, people who still admire Fidel Castro after seeing what he delivered. Never underestimate the power of delusion.
I agree that he can't deliver what he promised -- in part because he was a blank slate upon which people could project their own desires, imagining that these are things that he actually promised. And even when he did make promises, he often made contradictory promises. Coal or no coal? Tax breaks for people making $200k? Or are they the rich who he promised to soak?
But will people feel disillusioned?
Think Battered Woman Syndrome. Women who make every excuse for why their man slaps them around, berates them, keeps them on a short leash and treats the dog better. Well, watch for Battered Voter Syndrome. Anything that they can't twist around to blame on Republicans they'll take on their own shoulders. They didn't do enough on the grassroots level. They weren't supportive enough. They didn't write enough letters to their congresscritter or to the editor.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's absurd to believe that the bubble's gonna burst among Obamaphiles. As long as the MSM touts their guy as The One, they'll just see it as honesty and integrity and having the smarts to recognize The One for Who He Is. If you're hearing somebody parroting what you think, they're not biased; they're smart.
See Battered Voter Syndrome, above. My father found ways to blame the Beatles and Jane Fonda for just about everything but sunspot activity. As long as Republicans exist, Obamatrons will blame everything that goes wrong on the Republicans. And if we were suddenly all wiped out by a Smart Bomb that can read voter registration cards, they'd find a new scapegoat. Perhaps the Libertarians.
Please! You're making me spit tea on my keyboard!
They worship the man. The earth will crumble to dust before they turn on The One.
Unless somebody they like more comes along. Remember how they turned on Hillary?
The press are like teenieboppers with crushes on pop stars. As long as nobody younger and cuter comes along, they'll pant after Obama. No matter what he does. No matter how we hold their feet to the fire about it.
So. Other than that, I agree with Chizumatic. I think he (she) is also right that the Iranians will nuke Israel. The only question is whether it'll be a tactical nuclear strike or a dirty bomb.
Overall I think (perhaps hope) he's right. But I think he has an unrealistically optimistic view of Obamatraon nature.
A lot of people bought a pig in a poke today, and now they're going to find out what they bought. Obama isn't what most of them think he is. The intoxication of the cult will wear off, leaving a monumental hangover.
And four years from now they'll be older and much wiser.
Gotta agree on the first part. I can't count the number of Obama supporters who called in to talk radio gushing about their man, but totally unable to give a single specific beyond "he's not a Republican" and "he inspires people". These people voted for a persona, not a person.
But will they wise up? I would like to think so. But I have my doubts. There are, after all, people who still admire Fidel Castro after seeing what he delivered. Never underestimate the power of delusion.
And it ain't possible for the Democrats to deliver what's been promised. Gonna be a hell of a lot of disillusioned lefties out there. A lot of people who felt they were deceived. A lot of people who will eventually realize that the Obama campaign was something of a cult.
Disillusionment will turn to a feeling of betrayal. And that will, in turn, convert to anger.
I agree that he can't deliver what he promised -- in part because he was a blank slate upon which people could project their own desires, imagining that these are things that he actually promised. And even when he did make promises, he often made contradictory promises. Coal or no coal? Tax breaks for people making $200k? Or are they the rich who he promised to soak?
But will people feel disillusioned?
Think Battered Woman Syndrome. Women who make every excuse for why their man slaps them around, berates them, keeps them on a short leash and treats the dog better. Well, watch for Battered Voter Syndrome. Anything that they can't twist around to blame on Republicans they'll take on their own shoulders. They didn't do enough on the grassroots level. They weren't supportive enough. They didn't write enough letters to their congresscritter or to the editor.
1. It is no longer possible for anyone to deny that the MSM is heavily biased. The MSM have been biased for decades but managed an illusion of fairness. That is no longer possible; the MSM have squandered their credibility during this campaign. They'll never get that credibility back again.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's absurd to believe that the bubble's gonna burst among Obamaphiles. As long as the MSM touts their guy as The One, they'll just see it as honesty and integrity and having the smarts to recognize The One for Who He Is. If you're hearing somebody parroting what you think, they're not biased; they're smart.
2. Since the Democrats got nearly everything they hoped for in this campaign, they'll have no excuses and will have to produce. They'll have to reveal their true agenda -- or else make clear that they don't really have any beyond gaining power.
See Battered Voter Syndrome, above. My father found ways to blame the Beatles and Jane Fonda for just about everything but sunspot activity. As long as Republicans exist, Obamatrons will blame everything that goes wrong on the Republicans. And if we were suddenly all wiped out by a Smart Bomb that can read voter registration cards, they'd find a new scapegoat. Perhaps the Libertarians.
5. There will eventually be a press backlash against Obama which will make their treatment of Bush look mild. Partly that's going to be because Obama is going to disappoint them just as much as all his other supporters. Partly it will be the MSM desperately trying to regain its own credibility, by trying to show that they're not in his tank any longer. And because of that they are eventually going to do the reporting they should have done during this campaign, about Obama's less-than-savory friends, and about voter fraud, and about illegal fund-raising, and about a lot of other things.
Please! You're making me spit tea on my keyboard!
They worship the man. The earth will crumble to dust before they turn on The One.
Unless somebody they like more comes along. Remember how they turned on Hillary?
The press are like teenieboppers with crushes on pop stars. As long as nobody younger and cuter comes along, they'll pant after Obama. No matter what he does. No matter how we hold their feet to the fire about it.
So. Other than that, I agree with Chizumatic. I think he (she) is also right that the Iranians will nuke Israel. The only question is whether it'll be a tactical nuclear strike or a dirty bomb.
Data collection suggestion
We have virtually no information on why post-viability abortions are done in this country. I think we need to start mandating the collection of the following data:
1. Estimated gestational age
2. How gestational age was determined
2a. How was the gestational age verified after the abortion?
3. Was this baby deemed viable prior to the abortion?
4. What methods were used to come to the above conclusion?
5. What provisions were made for a live birth?
6. Was there a live birth? If so, what actions were taken?
7. What was the reason for the abortion?
7a. If the abortion was for rape or incest, was the crime reported?
7a1. If no, why not?
7a2. If yes, what is the outcome of the reporting?
7b. If incest or statutory rape, what steps, if any, have been taken to ensure the patient will not be subjected to further abuse?
7c. What provisions, if any, have been made to provide the patient with ongoing counseling?
8. If the abortion was for maternal or fetal indications, was the woman self-referred or physician referred?
8a. What steps, if any, were taken to confirm the diagnosis?
8b. What is the ICD-9 code for the diagnosis?
8c. What treatment or support options other than abortion were discussed with the patient? Why were these options rejected?
8d. If for maternal health, what provisions were made for follow-up care for the patient's health condition?
8e. If for fetal indications, how was the diagnosis confirmed after the abortion?
Any suggestions? I'd particularly like to hear from women who were referred for "health" or "fetal indications" abortions.
1. Estimated gestational age
2. How gestational age was determined
2a. How was the gestational age verified after the abortion?
3. Was this baby deemed viable prior to the abortion?
4. What methods were used to come to the above conclusion?
5. What provisions were made for a live birth?
6. Was there a live birth? If so, what actions were taken?
7. What was the reason for the abortion?
7a. If the abortion was for rape or incest, was the crime reported?
7a1. If no, why not?
7a2. If yes, what is the outcome of the reporting?
7b. If incest or statutory rape, what steps, if any, have been taken to ensure the patient will not be subjected to further abuse?
7c. What provisions, if any, have been made to provide the patient with ongoing counseling?
8. If the abortion was for maternal or fetal indications, was the woman self-referred or physician referred?
8a. What steps, if any, were taken to confirm the diagnosis?
8b. What is the ICD-9 code for the diagnosis?
8c. What treatment or support options other than abortion were discussed with the patient? Why were these options rejected?
8d. If for maternal health, what provisions were made for follow-up care for the patient's health condition?
8e. If for fetal indications, how was the diagnosis confirmed after the abortion?
Any suggestions? I'd particularly like to hear from women who were referred for "health" or "fetal indications" abortions.
Post-viability abortions in your state
Abortion Clinics Online is a clearinghouse for abortion facilities. They pay to put up their ads, just like anyplace else.
You can search by category. For example: abortions past 20 weeks.
At the end of the second trimester, it's possible for even a trained, competent physician to be off as much as two weeks when estimating gestational age.
When you get into the third trimester, even a trained and competent doctor can be off by as much as three weeks.
So a 20-week fetus with supposedly no chance of survival might actually be a 22-week baby, who has a slim but real chance of surviving.
A 22-week fetus with only about a 10% chance of survival might actually be a 24-week baby, with a 40-70% chance of survival.
A 24-week fetus with a 40-70% chance of survival might be a 27-week baby with a 90% chance of survival.
A 26-week fetus with an 80-90% chance of survival might actually be a 29-week baby with an over 90% chance of survival.
And 26+? They already have a greater than 90% chance of survival.
How many of them are really 30-week babies, with the same chance of survival as a full-term infant?
And this is, of course, assuming that the doctor is competent and honest, not a quack trying to fudge his ultrasound results to make a sale.
How many of these babies are born alive?
First: Call for more information
Our first step, I think, needs to be in calling for information.
The CDC gathers information on abortions. Their most recent report is for 2004.
The latest gestational age they count is "more than 21 weeks". That's 22 weeks and more. There were 8,365 reported.
Over eight thousand babies old enough to have survived outside the womb. In one year.
Every DAY that passes after 22 weeks is a greater chance of survival for that baby. How many babies are we aborting that could survive? That might very well be surviving the abortion, but left to die in clinic toilets or hospital utility rooms?
We need to demand to know week by week.
We need to compare those stats to those babies' chance of survival.
How many of these babies are 23 week babies that have a 10-35% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 24 week babies that have a 40-70% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 25 week babies that have a 50-80% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 26 week babies that have a 80-90% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 27 weeks or older, with a greater than 90% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 30 weeks and older, with the same survival rate as term infants?
Then we need to demand to know why these babies were aborted.
Nobody's collecting information on that, as far as I know. The Alan Guttmacher Institute did a survey of why abortions were being done after 16 weeks, and lumped them all in together.
We need to demand this information and start using it.
The CDC gathers information on abortions. Their most recent report is for 2004.
The latest gestational age they count is "more than 21 weeks". That's 22 weeks and more. There were 8,365 reported.
Over eight thousand babies old enough to have survived outside the womb. In one year.
Every DAY that passes after 22 weeks is a greater chance of survival for that baby. How many babies are we aborting that could survive? That might very well be surviving the abortion, but left to die in clinic toilets or hospital utility rooms?We need to demand to know week by week.
We need to compare those stats to those babies' chance of survival.
How many of these babies are 23 week babies that have a 10-35% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 24 week babies that have a 40-70% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 25 week babies that have a 50-80% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 26 week babies that have a 80-90% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 27 weeks or older, with a greater than 90% chance of survival?
How many of these babies are 30 weeks and older, with the same survival rate as term infants?
Then we need to demand to know why these babies were aborted.
Nobody's collecting information on that, as far as I know. The Alan Guttmacher Institute did a survey of why abortions were being done after 16 weeks, and lumped them all in together.
We need to demand this information and start using it.
This means war!
I've had it.
I live in a country where Christians are proud to have elected a man who is okay with wrapping a whimpering baby in a towel and sticking him in a closet to die. Where we couldn't get a simple majority to agree that it's wrong to leave a baby to drown in a toilet.
I kept the abortion thing for the blogosphere, for political discussions. For "appropriate venues". Because it just upsets people. They don't want to think about it. They don't want you to bring it up. And I don't like to upset people.
Well I no longer care if they're upset. They are upset about the wrong thing -- upset that their indifference is being hauled out for an airing. I will no longer shut up about it. I will no longer be sensitive. Because I just witnessed the indecent spectacle of a hundred million people dancing on a child's grave.
I've had it. The gloves are off.
ROWAN MATTERED. This is my friend's child that I've been glossing over. And God forgive me for having done it.
UPDATE: Dillwads who post YAY OBAMA and nothing else will be nuked. You KNOW you're dancing on a baby's grave, and your posts will be ABORTED. You should be okay with that, right?
I live in a country where Christians are proud to have elected a man who is okay with wrapping a whimpering baby in a towel and sticking him in a closet to die. Where we couldn't get a simple majority to agree that it's wrong to leave a baby to drown in a toilet.
I kept the abortion thing for the blogosphere, for political discussions. For "appropriate venues". Because it just upsets people. They don't want to think about it. They don't want you to bring it up. And I don't like to upset people.
Well I no longer care if they're upset. They are upset about the wrong thing -- upset that their indifference is being hauled out for an airing. I will no longer shut up about it. I will no longer be sensitive. Because I just witnessed the indecent spectacle of a hundred million people dancing on a child's grave.
I've had it. The gloves are off.
ROWAN MATTERED. This is my friend's child that I've been glossing over. And God forgive me for having done it.
UPDATE: Dillwads who post YAY OBAMA and nothing else will be nuked. You KNOW you're dancing on a baby's grave, and your posts will be ABORTED. You should be okay with that, right?
Thursday, November 06, 2008
One down. How many to go?
One of the guys I used to teach with in Korea was a Friend in FaceBook. I gave my status as "crying for Angele" and he asked for more information. I told him.
He told me it was "a needle in a haystack moment" and to "get over it", how Barack Obama was going to do wonderful things "for women".
I nuked him from my friends list. Anybody who considers leaving a baby to die in an abortion clinic toilet something that should just be blown off as insignificant... Well, maybe I'll just consider you a bit insignificant, too. Your baby is alive. Even though a Korean doctor wanted to abort him. You and your wife escaped with your child's life, by God's grace. You might have a little compassion for those who weren't so blessed.
He told me it was "a needle in a haystack moment" and to "get over it", how Barack Obama was going to do wonderful things "for women".
I nuked him from my friends list. Anybody who considers leaving a baby to die in an abortion clinic toilet something that should just be blown off as insignificant... Well, maybe I'll just consider you a bit insignificant, too. Your baby is alive. Even though a Korean doctor wanted to abort him. You and your wife escaped with your child's life, by God's grace. You might have a little compassion for those who weren't so blessed.
God is in control
Not the best montage, but embedding is enabled and the song is something that those of us who haven't forgotten the least of these have to remember:
Can we really? Tell me the truth.
Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature - that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance - and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell me the truth. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
This is Rowan.
Rowan is my friend's son. He is a baby who died because he was denied medical care after surviving an abortion, despite his mother's pleas for an ambulance. A denial of medical care that our President-elect has gone on record as finding right and just.
Oh, he has such great plans for our country, President-elect Obama. He has promised us a fabric of human destiny with the object of making us happy in the end, of giving us rest and peace at last.
An edifice to be built on Rowan's weak gasps as he died in an abortion clinic toilet. An edifice to be built on his mother's unavenged tears.
On November 4, this proposal was bought before the voters of this nation. Can we, Barack Obama asked, build our destiny on those unavenged tears?
The answer was, "Yes we can!"
Even if we could, would it be worth it?
Is it palatable, is it acceptable, only because you, personally, didn't have to stand outside that locked bathroom door, waiting for the mother's pleas of desperation to change to cries of anguish and grief?
If you had to stand outside that door and hear those cries, would the answer still have been yes?
Tell me. And tell me the truth.