Friday, August 01, 2008

Desperate times call for desperate measures?

Since there is nothing in Proposition 4 ("Sarah's Law") itself to attack, Planned Parenthood of California has decided to attack "Sarah" -- 'Sarah's Law' would not have applied to 'Sarah,' acknowledge backers of the abortion-notification measure:

Backers of a ballot measure that would require parents to be notified before an abortion is performed on a minor acknowledged Friday that the 15-year-old on which "Sarah's Law" is based had a child and was in a common-law marriage before she died of complications from an abortion in 1994.


As the article says, "Sarah" was in Texas at the time of the fatal abortion. Texas does not recognize common-law marriage of a minor without either a court order or proof of parental consent. But the article doesn't say that there was such a court order or proof of parental consent. The article merely notes that the man who was with Sarah "declared himself her common-law husband". That does not make him her husband any more than me saying "I'm Mrs. Craig Ferguson" would make me the Scottish guy's wife.

So unless Planned Parenthood is holding back, "Sarah" was not in a common law marriage. And even if she was, what does that change? Would "Sarah" be less dead? Would the girls of California be somehow protected from sexual predators?

Planned Parenthood is attacking a measure to protect teens, using an assertion by somebody who didn't care enough about his supposed "wife" to seek prompt medical care for her. He let her die. Her seedy abortionist let her die. Nobody bothered to tell her parents. And nobody is disputing this, not even Planned Parenthood.

But the details of "Sarah's" horrible death hardly really matter to Planned Parenthood. All that matters to them is that Proposition 4 threatens a major source of revenue: sexual predators seeking, via contraception and abortion, to keep their crimes a secret. And if that means treating a fatally-neglected teenage girl as if she was an adult and therefore somehow responsible for her own death, they'll do it.

Now, what really gets me is that Planned Parenthood has no taste for accuracy in their own propaganda. They fight parental involvement tooth and nail, often dragging up the death of Becky Bell (See here.) -- who died of the same strain of pneumonia that killed Jim Henson and who never had an induced abortion. Her parents became confused by the word "abortion" on her autopsy report (referring to a miscarriage shortly before her death), and the abortion lobby -- including Planned Parenthood -- never bothered to correct their misunderstanding. They lied to Becky's parents -- telling them that yes, Becky did really have an abortion -- as well as to the public and to legislators, in order to further their financial objective of maintaining a customer base of underage girls. This bears repeating: Planned Parenthood lied, not merely held back some information, about Becky Bell, to the point of inventing an abortion that never took place, in order to promote secret teen abortions. But they are attacking Friends of Sarah for citing the story of a girl who really did die of a secret abortion, claiming that it is Friends of Sarah who "mislead" the public!

I never thought it was smart to use a girl who aborted out-of-state as a poster child for a state ballot initiative, especially when there are plenty of instances of underage girls being horribly injured in secret abortions within California's borders. Rachel Ely was left paralyzed by a botched secret abortion. Diana Lopez didn't know her daughter was pregnant until she got a call from the middle school telling her the child was in the hospital. Ditto for Virginia P.. The backers of Proposition 4 could have supplemented the identified in-state injuries (and, no doubt, hundreds if not thousands of cases of verified statutory rape) with stories like "Sarah", and Dawn Ravenelle, and Tamiia Russell. Girls do die from secret abortions, often because they don't get medical care in time. Girls are horribly injured by secret abortions. Girls are subjected to years of additional abuse because of secret abortions. Planned Parenthood knows this and is doing everything in their power (with the fawning help of the MSM, who would print that fetuses grow under cabbage leaves if Planned Parenthood told them to) to keep people from recognizing this.

Friends of Sarah didn't lie about Sarah. Everything on the web site about her is true:

Sarah was a 15 year old girl who became pregnant. Without her parent’s consent or notice, Sarah visited a clinic and the abortionist performed an abortion on Sarah, unknowingly tearing the right side of her cervix. Unaware of this complication, Sarah suffered blood poisoning, fever, chills, abdominal pain and nausea for four days before finally being admitted to the hospital. When hospital personnel discovered the tear and post-abortion infection, they placed Sarah in the Intensive Care Unit, but the infection was too far advanced and Sarah died. Hospital physicians reported that had Sarah received prompt medical care, she would still be alive today.

Sarah’s parents did not know that she was pregnant. Sarah’s parents didn’t know that Sarah had an abortion. Her parents could have saved her….if they had known.


Where are the lies? An underage girl was subjected to an abortion, kept secret from her parents, the guy who got her pregnant didn't get prompt medical care for her, and as a result this secret abortion killed her when prompt medical care would probably have saved her life. Even as Planned Parenthood is going on the attack, they are not disputing a single fact that Friends of Sarah put out.

Friends of Sarah also put up information on abused girls in California and other states -- including four cases in which a Planned Parenthood aided an abuser -- none of which Planned Parenthood has been able to refute. Again, where are the lies? There are none.

But keeping back some information -- which Planned Parenthood, given how they are going after Phil Kline, was bound to have ferreted out sooner or later -- was a bad move. Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocacy organizations can put out bald-faced lies and the MSM will repeat them even after they are thoroughly debunked. (See Becky Bell, above.) But all Planned Parenthood or other abortion advocates have to do is have a shred of evidence that somebody disagrees with a prolifer to "prove" that we're "lying". Not a single lie was put forth in support of "Sarah's Law", but withholding some information gave Planned Parenthood a single note that, with the help of the MSM, they will play like Todd Rundgren plays the guitar.

The question supporters of the bill need to be asking opponents is, "What's your real objection here?" Which is a question the MSM will NOT ask.

Play the Life Dynamics tapes of Planned Parenthood staff telling a girl they thought was 13, pregnant to a 22-year-old, how to evade mandatory reporting laws. Point out the huge financial interest Planned Parenthood has in defeating Proposition 4. And mostly, ask them to point to the part of Proposition 4 that they object to, and ask them explain why they object. Then, when they have nothing, ask why they're fighting a bill that there is nothing wrong with.

And bring out every sordid detail about how "Sarah" died. Her death was so horrible that Mona and I were crying when we read her autopsy report. Nothing Planned Parenthood says can make that poor girl's death anything but a needless, inexcusable tragedy. And we should allow nothing they say to hide their indifference to her suffering, and the suffering of other girls like her, the suffering of their families.

ADDENDUM: Last night (August 1) I sent Ashli of The Sicle Cell the following email, which she suggested I post. I am taking her advice, because this is really bugging me.

Howdy, Ashli. Hope you're holding out well.

I'm feeling like I blew it.

When the California Proposition 4 people came out as "Friends of Sarah" with "Sarah's Law", I thought I'd encountered an abortion death I hadn't known about. But I quickly saw that "Sarah" was Jammie Garcia.

I confess, it was ego. I wanted to be clever, to be in the know. I mentioned in several blogs that "Sarah" was Jammie.

Now Planned Parenthood has uncovered information about Jammie I hadn't known about -- that she was cohabitating with her baby's father, who at lease SAID he was her "common law husband". That she had another child already at the time of the abortion.

They're using the fact that "Friends of Sarah" didn't disclose this as proof that FoS is "misleading" the public, that the whole underpinning of Proposition 4 is a pack of lies.

On a practical level, all they're doing is suing to make them remove the "Sarah" information from their materials. But it's a PR nightmare. And California being California, it may be enough to torpedo the ballot initiative. You know how the MSM are. Cheerleaders for the abortion agenda, totally without any sense of reality or proportion.

They're not challenging that "Sarah" was underage, that she died a horrible death for lack of prompt medical care after a botched abortion. They're not disputing or challenging a single fact of the proposition. They're not addressing the issues at all. They're just taking the "Sarah's law wouldn't have applied to Sarah anyway" line, and the LA Times is running with it.

I have no doubt that other news outlets will do likewise. As I blog search I'm already finding it.

I'm the one who put the information about Jammie all over the web, long before "Friends of Sarah". And they had information on her that I didn't have, like that her parents hadn't known about the abortion. And at the time I was tracking down information on "Sarah", I found another site that positively identified that it was Coleman, not Hachamovitch himself, who did the abortion. But I was the one who looked for blogs about teen abortions and put info and links about teen deaths -- including Jammie's -- up in response.

I know FoS should have done a better job picking a poster child, should have been more upfront with their information. PP likely would have dug it out anyway. But I feel as if I "blew their cover".

Even if I hadn't said "Sarah is Jammie", somebody would have put two and two together eventually. I keep telling myself.

Sigh. The Guilties. Moshe Hachamovitch ran the seedy clinic. John Coleman shoved her fetus through her bowel and left it there to rot. Her "husband" didn't get her to a hospital until she was moribund. FoS was evasive about who "Sarah" was when they should have been upfront. And Planned Parenthood doesn't care if every underage girl in America gets a fetus shoved into her bowel as long as it doesn't impact their bottom line.

So why do I feel so miserable?

Me


And, in advance, for those of you with the question on your minds, "Why do you post the nasty abortion stories anyway?" I've answered that here. "Sarah is Jammie" was showing off. But telling Jammie's story in the first place wasn't.

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