Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers. Can You Really Do an Abortion Up To Birth in America?

Is Donald Trump right? Can you really perform an abortion in ths United Sates right up until the point of birth? Unlike the "fact checkers" which just go to their respecitive lobbying groups and reiterate talking points, I'll actually, you know, fact check.

I'll start with this excellent summary, Abortion Law in the United States: An Overview:

In a nutshell:

1. Roe vs. Wade, the most famous abortion case, allowed no "restrictions" on abortion in the first two trimesters. For the third trimester, the states were allowed to make some restrictions -- as long as they allowed abortions for "health" reasons. The companion decision, Doe vs. Bolton, then defined health so broadly that really, anything could suffice:

[M]edical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.

I must point out at this point that prior to Roe and Doe, there was no such thing as a third trimester abortion. Abortion was, by definition, killing the fetus prior to viability. So post-viability abortions were not only invented but enshrined as a supposed Constitutional right.

And unless you define "health" so broadly as to include family concerns (which no doubt would include financial considerations), the whole idea of a post-viability "health" abortion is nonsensical on its face. If a pregnancy is endangering the mother's life or health, the standard of care has been to induce labor or perform a c-section, based on the woman's particular needs. With a c-section, the baby can be out of the womb and in the NICU within the hour, the pregnancy is over, and the mother can be cared for by medical professionals. It's nonsensical to say that it would preserve her "health" or her life to take additional steps to ensure that the fetus emerges dead.

The only logical reason to perform a post-viability abortion -- to stop during delivery to kill the baby -- is to achieve the death of the fetus, either for social reasons or because the baby has a disability of some sort.

Again, a "health" justification for a post-viability abortion is nonsensical, but because of Roe and Doe, the states must include them in order to pass Constitutional muster. Occasionally you'll see an old pre-Roe law still on the books that 's not enjoined, either because there are no abortionists in that state who want to perform late abortions, or because the law isn't being enforced so there's no point in going to court over it.

2. As the summary notes, after the Webster decidion in 1989 and the Planned Parenthood vs. Casey decision in 1992, the Supreme Court allowed states to put some regulations (such as waiting periods or informed consent) into place, and allowed the states to be a bit firmer about exactly what constituted "health". Still, no state can actually ban third trimester abortions, because if this "health" requirement in Doe.

3. So now we have a hodge-podge. The Alan Guttmacher Insitute (AGI), an abortion-rights research and lobbying group, summarizes state policies on abortion late in pregnancy. Another abortion-rights source, The Diane Rehm Show, created a map based on the AGI summary breaking the laws down into when different states restrict late abortions, but doesn't include exceptiions.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion-advocacy organization co-founded by Bernard Nathanson (who later repented) and Larry Lader (who remained proud of his abortion activities up to his death), used to provide state-by-state informoation in great detail but now just provide a vague summary:

13 states ban abortion after 20 weeks without an adequate health exception: AL, AZ*, AR, GA, ID, IN, KS, LA, MS, NE, ND, OK, TX.1 state has an unconstitutional and unenforceable ban on abortion after 12 weeks without an adequate health exception: AR.

Sample post-viability abortion restrictions from 2010, back when NARAL actually provided them, were as follows (verbatim from NARAL). Notice that if the state just has a "health" exception to their "restriction", then it is the Doe definition of health, which could be anything the woman or doctor wants it to be.

Florida: 'Florida's post-viability restriction states that no abortion may be provided in the third trimester unless two physicians certify in writing that it is necessary to preserve the woman's life or health.  If an abortion is provided during viability, the physician must "use that degree of professional skill, care, and diligence" most likely to preserve the life and health of the fetus except that "the woman's life and health shall constitute an overriding and superior consideration to the concern for the life and health of a fetus when such concerns are in conflict."'

Kansas: 'Kansas' post-viability abortion restriction states that no abortion may be provided after viability unless the attending physician and another financially and legally independent physician determine that an abortion is necessary to preserve the woman's life or continuation of the pregnancy would cause a "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" of the woman.  Kan. Stat. Ann. § 65-6703(a) (Enacted 1992; Last Amended 1998).  The Kansas attorney general has interpreted this exception to include mental health. Op. Kan. Att'y. Gen. 2000-020.

In addition, Kansas bans the provision of certain post-viability procedures (not including the suction curettage procedure, suction aspiration procedure, and certain dilation and evacuation procedures).  Kan. Stat. Ann. § 65-6721 (Enacted 1998).  This ban states that performance of certain post-viability procedures is a felony, unless the physician and another legally and financially independent physician determine that the abortion is necessary to preserve the woman's life or that continuation of the pregnancy would cause a "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major physical or mental function" of the woman.'

Maine: 'Maine's post-viability abortion restriction states that no abortion may be provided after viability unless necessary to preserve the woman's life or health.'

New Hampshire: NARAL notes no restrictions on post-viability abortion.

Rhode Island: 'Rhode Island's post-viability abortion restriction states that no abortion may be performed on a "quick child," defined as "an unborn child whose heart is beating, who is experiencing electronically measurable brainwaves, who is discernibly moving, and who is so far developed and matured as to be capable of surviving the trauma of birth with the aid of usual medical care and facilities," unless necessary to preserve the woman's life.'

Wisconsin: No abortion may be provided after viability unless necessary to preserve the woman's life or health.  The physician must use the available method most likely to preserve the life and health of the fetus unless it would increase the risk to the woman.

In closing, the following states have no late abortion restrictions whatsoever:

1. Alaska
2. Colorado
3. New Hampshire
4. New Jersey
5. New Mexico
6. Oregon
7. Vermont
8. West Virginia

Others draw the line at some gestational age, but allowing excpetions for life and physical health (defined more or less broadly on a state-by-state basis), or for life and physical or mental health (defined more or less broadly on a state-by-state basis). 

The following allow late abortions only to preserve the life of the mother:

1. Idaho
2. Michigan
3. Rhode Island

So in eight states, a woman can legally decide at any point in pregnancy, up until birth, that she wants an abortion, and any doctor who chooses to perform it may, legally. In three states her life must be in danger in order to perform a late abortion, and in the remaining 39 states there must be a documented physical or mental health issue before the abortion may proceed.

Thus, Trump was right, but left out a lot of detail.

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Who Benefits from Abortion-Rights Efforts?

Abortion rights activists are fighting tooth and nail against laws and regulations that hold abortion clinics to the same standards as other outpatient surgical facilities. They assert that it is for women's benefit that they fight to keep the state from tightening standards for abortion clinics. But who is it that really benefits?

Let's look at some of the clinics that closed down in the wake of the Texas law that Wendy "Abortion Barbie" Davis fought so hard against and ask, "Cui bono?"

Let's look at some of the facilities Davis and her friends were fighting so hard to keep open.

Abortion Advantage (operating under several different names) was fined for repeated health violations: in March 2003 for $11,400 and in September 2007 for $1,950. Violations included:

• failure to maintain a safe and sanitary environment
• failure to maintain appropriate infection control
• failure to maintain complete and accurate medical records including documentation of medications administered
• failure to ensure that staff who provided patient care were certified in basic life support
• failure to meet minimum standards for administering sedation

A doctor at this clinic, Dr. Robert Prince, was no prince. He was sued by the family of Dorothy Brant for failing to perform a proper pre-operative evaluation before performing an abortion on 22-year-old Dorothy at Dallas Medical Ladies Clinic on May 27, 1986. Dorothy hemorrhaged during the procedure. Prince, they added was negligent in his administration of drugs, anesthesia, and a blood transfusion. Dorothy was transferred to a hospital, where she died four days later.
One of Routh Street Clinic's doctors, Jasbir Ahluwalia had lost hospital privileges in 1996 due to improper handling of high-risk pregnancies. He had already been sued in 1991 and 1995 by three women whose abortions he botched, one of whom wound up needing a hysterectomy, and sued in 1995 by a woman who ended up losing a kidney because he stitched one of her ureters shut during a hysterectomy. In 2002, the Dallas Morning News noted that Ahluwalia had been sued after causing severe brain damage to their child during delivery.

Hilltop Women's Reproductive Health Services threw fetal remains in the trash, where a neighborhood dog found them. The dog's whose owners gave the remains to prolifers who then notified the authorities -- who chose to do nothing. If the state is turning a blind eye to a clinic dumping fetal remains outside the clinic, what are they turning a blind eye to behind the clinic's doors?

Women's Center of Houston's doctor Richard Cunningham was sued for his involvement in an ordeal suffered by a teenage abortion patient and her baby. After the insertion of laminaria (sterile seaweed sticks) to dilate her cervix for a late abortion, the teen changed her mind. Another doctor working with Cunningham lied to the girl, telling her that it would very much endanger her to remove the laminaria and stop the procedure, and put in more laminaria to further dilate her cervix. After leaving the clinic, the teen, increasingly upset, returned and spoke first to the other doctor then to Cunningham, who again lied, telling her that she could bleed to death if they removed the laminaria. After half an hour of badgering the girl to continue the abortion, Cunningham told her to look in the yellow pages for an anti-abortion group and dismissed her from the clinic. The girl and her mother immediately went to a hospital, but by then the teen's cervix had been too far dilated to keep her from going into labor. She gave birth to a 1 lb. 13 oz. baby girl who struggled for life in the NICU for six months before dying in February of 1992. Cunningham had also performed a fatal abortion on Sheila Watley in 1987.

In 2010 their other doctor, Shah Siddiqi, was disciplined for malpractice involving two non-abortion patients. One suffered permanent damage after he botched back surgery and failed to diagnose what he'd done wrong. Another patient lost function in her left hand due to an infection caused by a spinal procedure and Siddiqi failed to quickly diagnose and treat the infection.

Whole Women's Health of McAllen: disposed of fetal remains and other biohazardous waste in a dumpster.

Douglas Karpen closed his clinic soon after the law was passed, without waiting for the injunction to be sorted out.

He was the  main doctor involved in the refusal to stop an abortion after the teenage patient changed her mind. (See Richard Cunningham, above.)

He let a teenage abortion patient bleed to death, after having lied to her parents about the risks to their daughter.

Glenda Davis bled to death after an abortion at Karpen's Aaron Family Planning. Rather than call an ambulance when Glenda started to hemorrhage, employees just pushed her out in a wheelchair and loaded her into an employee's car.

Three former employees provided photographic evidence that Karpen was killing live-born infants.

On two occasions, the owner of a car dealership next door to Karpen's clinic had to call authorities to report that the clinic sewer had backed up, spilling recognizable fetal parts onto his lot.

The mainstream media, who evidently consider "journalism" to consist of getting a talking points sheet from abortion-rights groups, have failed to report on the conditions at any of the closed clinics, but have instead just uncritically and unquestioningly parroting the words of those organizations.

Who would benefit if abortion-rights advocates successfully block state crackdowns on abortion clinics? Who would benefit if abortion clinics aren't held to the same standards as other outpatient surgical facilities? Who would benefit if Wendy Davis had her way?

It wouldn't be the women walking into those abortion clinics.

Gosnell, Carhart, and the PBA Ban (Part 3)

In Part 1, I gave some background on post-viability abortions, which were invented by the Supreme Court in 1973. In Part 2, I described the advent of the procedure that came to be known as Partial Birth Abortion. 

Now let's look at the ban and what it meant for abortion practitioners.

A trained eye can see the impact of Martin Haskell's "D&X" presentation paper all over the Kermit Gosnell Grand Jury Report. After all, sticking a scissors in the base of a living baby's skull to kill it didn't originate with Gosnell. In fact, the Grand Jury Report itself says:
At one point in his Grand Jury testimony, Kermit Gosnell employee Steve Massof "tried to suggest that the clinic’s practice of cutting babies’ spinal cords was somehow part of a late-term procedure called intact dilation and extraction (IDX), commonly referred to as 'partial birth abortion' and banned under federal law since 2007."

That Gosnell saw what he was doing as a modified PBA is clearer when we come to another employee's testimony:

Kareema Cross testified that when she first started working at the clinic, in 2005, Gosnell slit the neck of every baby. But he subsequently told the workers that the law changed so that he could not do that anymore. .... Cross said that Gosnell then tried a few times to use a new procedure: He tried to inject a drug called digoxin into the fetus’s heart while it was in the womb. This was supposed to cause fetal demise in utero. But because Gosnell was not skillful enough to successfully administer digoxin, late-term babies continued to be born alive, and he continued to kill them by slitting their necks.

Clearly Gosnell was trying to work inside the law. He tried to modify his practice to be in compliance as he understood it, even though he was violating other laws left and right. 

While the Partial Birth Abortion Ban did at least result in an attempt to change procedures to something that would be slightly less painful for the baby, in Gosnell's case at least it ultimately had no effect. What's more had Gosnell managed to kill the baby while it was only partially born, he would have only been guilty of violating the Abortion Control Act, and not guilty of murder.

When Roe falls, the laws will have to be tightened up so that there will be no chance of an abortionist weaseling around.

Should anybody be above the law?

And, more to the point, does performing abortions somehow elevate you to a status where you are above the law?

Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion lobby think so. This is why they are on the attack, trying to destroy Phil Kline.

Phil Kline has put everything on the line to hold Planned Parenthood accountable for performing illegal late abortions, and for falsifying public records. And they are going after him with guns blazing. Why? Because if Planned Parenthood's illegal activities are confirmed in a court of law, they stand to lose the hundreds of millions of dollars they have been given in tax dollars.

You don't have to be opposed to abortion to be opposed to the criminal activities some people choose to commit while practicing abortion. You don't have to favor the prolife movement to favor enforcing laws -- laws protecting viable fetuses, capable of surviving outside the womb, from being killed for reasons having nothing to do with any compelling medical issue.

Stand with Phil.

The campaign is seeking 6,000 individuals or families to each donate $50.



Make a donation and pass it on.

Regardless of your stand on abortion, none of us can afford to allow Planned Parenthood to establish that deep pockets and highly-placed friends mean that you can break the law and get away with it.

HT: Jill Stanek

Another attempt to criminalize hope

Pro-Abortion Lawmaker Reintroduces Bill Targeting Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Sen. Robert Menendez is one initiating this attack this time. I want to rant about his motivations, but I don't know them. It could be that his only mistake is to believe the lies of the abortion lobby. This might reflect ill on his intellect, but his heart might actually be in the right place.

Let's at least attempt to get a few bits of truth into his head. It's up to him if he's willing to put women's well-being ahead of his politics.
Who Should We Investigate?

Look here for how to contact your own Senator. I especially encourage women who have first-hand experience with CPCs or abortion facilities to step forward.

I ranted at Senator Menendez thus:

I am staggered that you are reintroducing the ages-old attack on pregnancy centers that offer real help and hope to pregnant women.

I have no idea how to reach you, to get you to think of the women who are injured and even killed because they trust abortion businesses. One of your own constituents, Eileen Smith, lost her precious daughter Laura just last year. Laura believed the advertisements, believed that her doctor would safeguard her well-being. Instead, he put her under general anesthesia with nobody to monitor her. She died on the abortion table. Another consitutent of yours, George Zallie, lost his daughter Stacy to a post-abortion suicide because her abortion facility did nothing to properly screen her or to ensure adequate aftercare.

Young women die becaues of abortion industry practices. The worst that can happen to a woman in even the most unprofessional CPC is that she might be annoyed. Why is it that people like you would rather see a woman killed by a prochoicer than annoyed by a prolifer?

What would it take to convince you to put aside politics and start caring about women's lives, health, and well-being? Tell me, I beg of you. Tell me what it would take to get you to even examine the evidence with an open mind. Tell me how to convince you that the lives of Laura Smith and Stacy Zallie mattered. What will it take to make you care?

Did your senator vote to protect teens?

How did he or she vote on funding to enforce the Child Custody Protection Act?

I would also propose that anybody who usurps the parental role also needs to assume 100% financial responsibility for the repercussions of having gone behind the parents' backs. Including big fat punative damages for the damage done to the integrity of the family, especially if the girl dies.

And if it was them, their drinking buddy, or their kid who knocked her up, DOUBLE the damages.

Go here to contact your senator.

Lawmaking 101

Make it clear whose job it is to detect violations and to pursue prosecution! Duh!

Kansas Agencies Pass the Buck at Abortion Hearings

Regarding Kansas law on post-viability abortions, it seems that it's nobody's responsibility to actually enforce it:

At issue is the Kansas ban on post-viability abortions..., which late-term abortionist George R. Tiller of Wichita has been accused of violating. That law states that abortions after 21 weeks can only be done to prevent maternal death that would be caused by the pregnancy or to "prevent substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman." It also states that before such abortions can take place, two doctors not financially or legally associated must both conclude that the abortions are medically justifiable under the provisions of the law. Those abortions must be reported to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) with the reason and basis for the abortion.

However, Greg Crawford of the KDHE told the committee that his job is simply to make sure that the forms submitted by abortionists have no empty fields. He said he makes no "judgment call" about the content of the field nor does he report any incidents where he may suspect an abortion has taken place illegally.

"I think an abortionist could put his dog's name in those fields, and the KDHE would consider that as acceptable," said Newman. "It makes the law requiring reporting for the purpose of enforcement a joke."

Larry Buening, Executive Director of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts (KSBHA), the agency responsible for policing abortionists, also testified and was aggressively questioned by the committee. He told them that the KSBHA does not automatically receive abortion reporting forms from the KDHE and therefore are unable to make any determinations about whether abortionists are following the law.

Oh, brother!