Anniversary: A fatal self-induced abortion

When Kris Humphrey found out she was pregnant, she consulted friends. One of Kris's friends said she'd done more than one self-induced abortion and recommended an abortion technique. The method relied on a tea of pennyroyal extract and black cohosh root.

On August 5, Kris started the abortion regimen. Over the approximately 10 days Kris was taking the tea, she went about her business, socializing with friends and family. Kris experienced abdominal pain and cramping, which she took as signs that the abortion was going as planned. Neither Kris nor her friend who recommended the tea thought anything was wrong at first.

The only person who was concerned was her mother, Embee. The two attended a movie together on August 7, and Kris told her mother about the pregnancy and about her herbalist plans. Embee, who'd suffered through an ectopic pregnancy herself, saw something familiar in the way Kris was holding her side from pain. She asked Kris if she was sure that the pregnancy was normal, not ectopic, but her daughter evaded the question.

Instead, Kris told her mother that the abortion should be complete on the 9th, and that she'd call then. But Kris continued to experience problems and continued to take the abortion concoction.

By Friday, August 12, Kris had given up on her herbal abortion plan. Embee and a friend offered to make arrangements and pay for her to have the abortion done by a doctor on the 13th. But when one of Kris's many housemates came home at 7:30 on Friday evening, she found Kris pale and feverish, and learned that she'd been vomiting. She continued to suffer chills, cramps, and vomiting for the next six hours.

Her condition continued to deteriorate. She passed out at around 11 p.m. Her friends continued to try to care for her, placing her in a cold bath at about 2 a.m Saturday to try to address her feverish sweating. But Kris just went into a seizure, so her friends carried her to the kitchen. One of them noticed that she wasn't breathing and started screaming. One friend called for an ambulance while another attempted to revive Kris.

The ambulance crew arrived at 2:27 a.m transported her to a hospital, where staff tried to stabilize her.

Her friends told staff about the abortion, and even brought the bottles of pennyroyal and black cohosh. The staff had no idea what effects the herbs might be having on Kris, and called poison experts.

Kris was in shock and suffering from disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. "She was bleeding from everywhere," said a doctor who treated her.

Doctors suspected an ectopic pregnancy, but feared doing exploratory surgery because Kris's condition was so fragile. They pumped her with IV fluids and made other attempts to stabilize her. In desperation, the doctors proceeded with surgery, finding an unruptured right tubal pregnancy that was bleeding from the end of the fallopian tube. The doctors removed the pregnancy and "significant quantity of old blood which was malodorous."

Even though the tube hadn't ruptured, it appeared that the effect of the pennyroyal on Kris's liver had caused the clotting problems that had led to her excessive internal bleeding.

After surgery, Kris showed no signs of responsiveness. She was declared brain dead on Sunday. Friends and family gathered at the hospital. Half an hour later, at 4:51 p.m., Kris was declared dead.

Testing on samples of Kris' liver showed signs of damage associated with one of the substances, pulegone, contained in pennyroyal. Not enough was known of the effects of pulegone on the liver to say for sure what effect the damage had on Kris or what role it played in her death.

Why didn't Kris have a safe, legal abortion?
She faced her pregnancy before legal abortion became available.
She was poor and couldn't afford an safe, legal abortion.
Kris was afraid her father would learn of the pregnancy and get violent, and her state had a law that required that both parents be notified if an underage girl sought an abortion.
Kris had already undergone a clinic abortion, found the process painful, and felt like she'd been treated disrespectfully.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Gardasil kills

Judicial Watch Uncovers New FDA Records Detailing Ten New Deaths & 140 “Serious” Adverse Events Related to Gardasil

Here's how Pro Life Blogs sums it up:

This is 25 girls or young women dead in 18 months' time, one of which was 11 years old, four of which were 12 years old, and one of which was 15.

As Greg pointed out in the comments, section, "Just so everyone knows, the VAERS database is a record of all reports of adverse events that occurred in patients around the time they received a certain drug, in this case Gardasil. These reports are not necessarily first hand, and information is often incomplete. Just because the deaths happened around the time of vaccination does not mean the vaccination caused the deaths."

There is still evidence, however, linking Gardasil with serious adverse reactions and deaths, and these reports show the lack of information about the risks of this vaccine.

But it's the social conservatives who are monsters because we object to giving potentially fatal vaccines to 11-year-old girls on the off chance that they might decide later to become promiscuous and thus run a high risk of cervical cancer.

That would be a risk that they would be choosing themselves. Later. When they're older. If we were doing our jobs as parents, teachers, pastors, youth leaders, aunts, older sisters, etc., girls would realize that sexual experimentation was risking their health and potentially their lives. They'd not see it as a harmless way to get male attention (as long as they use birth control, of course, and fix any "ooopsies" via abortion).

What right do we as a society have to try to mandate this vaccine? What is it about sanctioning teen sexual activity that makes it worth achieving at the cost of these kids' lives?

1984: After weeks in coma, abortion patient dies

Yvonne Tanner, a 22-year-old mother of a young daughter, had a safe and legal abortion performed by Stephen Pine and/or Morton Barke July 10, 1984 at Inglewood Women's Hospital.

Yvonne went into a coma immediately after the abortion, and died August 14, 1984. Her death certificate indicates coma, hypertension, and urinary tract infection.

The suit by her survivors alleged that Yvonne was not adequately advised of the risks prior to undergoing the fatal abortion.

The other women I know of who died from abortions at Inglewood are Kathy Murphy, Lynette Wallace, Elizabeth Tsuji, Cora Lewis, and Belinda Byrd.

What sort of facility was Inglewood Women's Hospita?
It was a respected, full-service women's hospital. The high number of deaths was attributed to the fact that they typically only performed abortions on high-risk patients.
It was an ordinary abortion facility that had a sudden cluster of deaths. They did an internal investigation in addition to the state investigation, and found that the deaths were all connected with a single nurse, who was fired and lost her nursing license.
It was a fairly seedy place that was frequently in violation of regulations but managed to stay open by always promising to do better next time. It was only shut down once, and re-opened almost immediately.
It was a disreputable abortion mill that was repeatedly shut down by the state, but by challenging the state's actions in court it was able to remain open.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Search: Abortion Videos

This is a popular search so I'm giving it a post of its own.

There is the Spanish abortion video with English subtitles. It's pretty graphic, including footage of a teenage patient expelling her dead baby, which the undercover investigator shows us.

To purchase videos or DVDs of former abortion workers' testimonies, visit Meet the Abortion Providers.

Priests for Life has videos about how abortions are performed; you can see them here. These videos aren't particularly graphic; Father Pavone uses fetal models to demonstrate, with real abortion instruments, how fetuses of these ages are destroyed.

You can view and read about a panel discussion about Carhart vs Gonzales, the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban" case.

There's a BBC programme about abortion that is staggering in its honesty. It includes graphic footage which the BBC got from a prolife source, but they got an abortion doctor to verify the accuracy of the footage.

How about equal time? Here's a video for the abortion advocacy side, full of so many lies and distortions it boggles the mind.

Follow along with an old Frontline program about abortion. It follows two teenage abortion patients, and also shows some women who rejected abortion and were helped by a local prolife physician and his wife.

I also gathered a collection of music videos about abortion.

And here is a video showing the results of one safe, legal abortion:



I have the best abortion videos here.



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Searches: Let's start with the quacks

There were a lot of searches for various quacks today. I'll pull them together all in one place:

Dr. "George Klopfer" abortion: Ding! Ding! Ding! You've picked a winner! Klopfer's specialty seemed to have been botching abortions. And here you can scroll down to the story of Patricia T., whose loved, wanted, and perfectly healthy 10-week fetus Klopfer aborted after telling her the child had died. And to compound the injury, he lacerated Patricia so badly that she had to have a hysterectomy and could never have another chance at having a baby. An investigation into Chicago Loop Mediclinic, a seedy abortion mill where Klopfer worked for a while, noted that Klopfer and Ming Kow Hah competed to see who could do the most abortions quickly. Hah kept tally on his scrub suit. A staffer said, "When Hah is here, Klopfer really zips. Hah marks the patients on his leg, and if Klopfer sees that Hah's got a legful, he goes like wildfire to catch up." Here is a write-up with pictures about Klopfer's abandoned clinic.

ob/gyn, Dr. "Tommy Tucker": Another winner! This guy called his private practice "Birmingham Women's Medical Clinic", giving patients the impression that he ran a licensed clinic. He botched an abortion on Angela Hall, then canceled the ambulance his nurse had called, delaying much needed care, with fatal results. He was such a quack he managed to kill a patient in 1994 when he was supposed to be just removing her Norplant.

Dr. Joe Bills Reynolds: This guy was responsible for the abortion death of 21-year-old Gaylene Golden. Reynolds' anesthetist, age 60, had originally been hired as a janitor, and an untrained orderly was acting as his nurse. The operating room was littered with dirty cups and papers. Reynolds tried to collect $500,000 on his wife's life insurance after she bled to death after he opened 25-inch incision, ostensibly for liposuction, on September 7, 1989. Reynolds was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter. He voluntarily surrendered his Oklahoma license.

1986: Anesthisia kills asthmatic abortion patient

Donna Heim, age 20, went to Her Medical Clinic on August 12, 1986, accompanied by her sister. Donna told staff that she had asthma, and she noted this on her forms when she filled them out. Despite this pre-existing condition, a nurse anesthetist administered general anesthesia for her safe and legal abortion. Donna started to have difficulty breathing, but Mahlon Cannon continued with the procedure for five more minutes before helping the nurse anesthetist to try to restore Donna's breathing.

Donna's sister, who was in the waiting room, became alarmed at the intense staff activity she noticed, and questioned a staffer about her sister. She was reassured that Donna was fine. The sister saw an ambulance pull up to the building and stepped outside, where she observed her sister being transferred into the emergency vehicle. Donna's sister followed the ambulance to a nearby hospital, which summoned the comatose young woman's parents.

Donna died the next day without regaining consciousness. An investigation was sparked, and an administrative law judge ruled that Cannon was negligent in continuing with the abortion despite the patient's respiratory distress. The judge also found that Cannon often failed to do medical exams, take medical histories, or administer standard tests prior to abortions./we

Liliana Cortez also died after an abortion at Her Medical Clinic that year.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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1922: Chicago woman dies from abortion, two doctors indicted

On August 13, 1922, 21-year-old Beulah Pickerill died at Chicago's Mid West Hospital from complications of a criminal abortion performed there that day. Two physicians, Vincent Filletti and Michale Galgano, were held by the coroner and indicted for felony murder. Floyd L. Butler and P.J. Owens were held as accessories.

How common was it before legalization for a woman to find a doctor to perform her abortion?
It was very rare. Most abortions back then were self-induced or done by people with no medical training.
It wasn't unheard-of, but it was unusual. Only about 25% of women were able to find a doctor to perform their abortions.
Roughly half of abortion-seeking women were able to find a doctor to do the procedure.
About 90% of women found doctors to do their abortions in the pre-legalization days.

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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1858: Mystery abortion proves fatal for widow's daughter

Ann Regan, "the daughter of a respectable widow" in Knightstown, Indiana, took ill on August 10, 1858. Her condition deteriorated over the next few days. On August 13, she went into a severe convulsion and died. The next day an autopsy determined that somebody had used instruments to perform an abortion on Ann, resulting in her death.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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1988: Abortion turns miracle to double tragedy

Allegra Roseberry, age 41, had been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. Allegra was admitted to Emory Hospital for assessment and surgery in anticipation of admission to an experimental cancer treatment program. There, a sonogram during surgery revealed a 23-week pregnancy, much to everyone's surprise since Allegra had undergone fertility drug treatment in order to conceive her son Matthew 20 years earlier. Her liver specialist, family doctor, and gynecologist all failed to detect her pregnancy despite amenorrhea, breast tenderness, distended abdomen, and nausea because these symptoms were attributed to the cancer and other ailments.

Allegra's doctors offered safe and legal abortion as her only alternative, saying that the fetus was "doomed" due to Allegra's ailments, that the pregnancy would render her ineligible for the experimental treatment, and that the pregnancy was damaging her fragile health and would greatly hasten her death. No one arranged for a consult with a perinatologist (specialist in treating pregnancies with high risks to mother or baby) or a high-risk obstetrician. The options of continuing the pregnancy and/or premature delivery of the infant were not offered or discussed.

Allegra was transferred to Emory's Crawford Long Hospital for the abortion. Young W. Ahn initiated the abortion by prostaglandin suppository on August 8, 1988. On August 9, Allegra expelled the dead baby, whom she and her husband named Amy Ann.

Allegra developed sepsis from the abortion, and died on August 13.

An autopsy revealed that Amy had been normal.

The liver specialist contended that Allegra would have aborted Amy even if she had known the child was healthy in order to be eligible for the experimental program. Allegra's gynecologist claimed that the reason for the abortion was damage to the fetus due to radiation therapy and also mentioned chemotherapy, neither of which Allegra had undergone. All defendants held that Allegra could not have survived long enough to deliver Amy alive anyway.

Could Amy have survived if delivered at 23 weeks?
No. Babies are not viable until at least 24 weeks of gestation.
Yes, but only a tiny chance, less than 1%.
Yes. Amy had a better than 10% chance of survival at 23 weeks.
Yes. Babies that young just need a lot of help and extra time in the NICU, but they routinely survive.

The jury rendered a verdict against the liver specialist for the wrongful death of baby Amy, but returned no verdict for the wrongful death of Allegra due to their assumption that the cancer would have killed her soon anyway. Evidently they did not consider the time she could have spent being a mother to her baby daughter to be of any value.

Allegra's was not the only tragic death caused by doctors who recommended (or excused) abortion as a life-saving or health-preserving option for the mother:

• Anjelica Duarte sought an abortion on the advice of her physician, and ended up dying under the care of a quack.
  
• Barbara Hoppert died after an abortion recommended due to a congenital heart problem.
  
• Christin Gilbert died after an abortion George Tiller holds was justified on grounds of maternal health.
  
• Erika Peterson died in 1961 when her doctors obtained her husband's permission to perform a "therapeutic" abortion.
  
• "Molly" Roe died in 1975 when her doctors made the dubious decision to perform a saline abortion to improve her chances of surviving a lupus crisis.
  

What percent of abortions are performed to try to save the life of the mother?
There are no definitive statistics, but the number is less than 3%
Peer-reviewed research by high-risk obstetricians puts the number at about 3%.
Extensive research puts the number at about 10%.
About 1/3 of abortions are performed because the woman's doctor has serious concerns that the pregnancy threatens her health or life.

What percent of abortions are performed because there is something wrong with the unborn baby?
There are no definitive statistics, but the number is less than 1%.
There are no definitive statistics, but the number is slightly more than 3%.
Extensive research shows that about 5% of abortions are performed to prevent the birth of a severely ill or disabled baby.
About 10% of abortions are performed because tests have shown that the baby has a serious birth defect.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Remember Rose Marie?

I remember her from The Dick van Dyke Show and Hollywood Squares. Well, here she is in her original career, as a child singer:



This is a real treat. I'm trying to find MP3s.

Here's a Vitaphone classic. She sings three songs -- and she's only 5 or 6 years old:



Wow!

Let's be clear who they're trying to reach out to

The blogosphere is alive with commentary about how the Democratic party is supposedly trying to reach out to "moderates" or "prolifers".

Democrats Reach For Moderates On Abortion: "Democrats say their new platform plank on abortion takes a step toward “establishing common ground” with abortion opponents and reaches out to evangelcals, Catholics and others who oppose abortion."

Dems' New Abortion Language Courts Pro-Life Moderates: "As CBN's David Brody notes, the new language is an effort to make the Democrats' position on abortion more palateable to moderate Evangelical and Catholic voters who agree with the Dems on other issues."

Uh, huh. Let's get some slightly clearer thinking here:

Dems Reach Middle Ground on Abortion?: "Some Catholics and evangelicals are touting efforts by the Democratic Party to write into their platform specific support for women to carry babies to term."

And here we've nailed it. Finally, the Democratic party isn't all about abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion, nothing but abortion, it's an absolute fundamental right that ought to be paid for by the taxpayers, it's all we ever wanted, it's all we've ever needed! Now they're finally conceding that yeah, now that you hold our feet to the fire, having the baby is okay, too.

They're not seeking middle ground with prolifers. They're seeking middle ground with PROCHOICERS. We're seeing a shift from shameless and braezen abortion advocacy to making concessions, albeit small, to those who think women might occasionally want to make another choice.

Again: This shift in the proposed wording of the platform isn't a move toward a middle ground between prochoice and prolife. It's a move toward a middle ground between proabortion and prochoice.

Which is a shift toward moderation the way moving from Berkeley to San Francisco is a shift toward Middle America.

But it's progress all the same.

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An ironic juxtaposition

Somebody came to my blog searching for "lovejoy surgicenter tubal ligation". The Google search they did turned up this as the first two links:



There's something I find ironically apt in how the story of how one of their patients died under the care of a pervert who is now in prison for possessing particularly deplorable child pornography is immediately followed by the clinic's statement of how "proud" they are of their "role" in "caring for women".

Certainly they have no shame. But maybe pride is pushing it a bit? Or is this just typical abortion-advocacy tunnel-vision?

Either way it certainly shows up reality in a way I couldn't have done on my own. Thanks Google!

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1970: Coed killed in California abortion

Sara Franki Lint, a 22-year-old coed, submitted to an abortion at San
Vicente Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on August 11, 1970. Adolpho
Zlotolow, who operated San Vicente said that Sara went into ventricular fibrillation (an erratic heart pattern that can't sustain life) soon after the abortion was initiated by either Albert Kapstrom or Milton Gotlib.

The technique being used on Sara, hysterotomy, was one with a known high maternal mortality rate. San Vicente staff treated Sara for an hour before transferring her to Midway Hospital down the street, where she died at 4:57am on August 12. The autopsy found yellow fluid in Sara's heart, frothy tan fluid in her lungs, and a seven-inch male fetus in Sara's uterus.

How was it that Sarah was able to get a hospital abortion before the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide?
She had serious health problems, so her abortion was permitted even though most abortions were illegal.
Her doctor had lied on her medical records, pretending he had admitted her to the hospital for another procedure so he could do the abortion secretly.
Sarah had been exposed to rubella ("German measles"), so she was allowed to get an abortion on the grounds of a risk of birth defects.
Abortion was legal in California already at the time of Sarah's abortion.

What happened to San Vicente Hospital and the abortionist after Sarah's fatal abortion?
The hospital was not disciplined, but the doctor lost his medical license.
The hospital was closed and the doctor went to prison until his attorney used Roe vs. Wade as leverage to get his conviction overturned.
They both got sued, but didn't face any disciplinary actions since they hadn't broken any laws.
Absolutely nothing. There were no repercussions of any sort.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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What Obama supports

Somebody found my blog by searching for Ronald Cornelsen, the pediatrician that got sucked into the fray the day William Baxter Waddill killed Mary W.'s newborn baby.

The baby, however, had been born as a result of an abortion Waddill had initiated on Mary. The baby was supposed to be dead. Waddill said it himself, in front of multiple witnesses.

He told Cornelsen, "Sorry to get you in this mess. We had a baby that came out live from a saline abortion, and it can't live!"

Cornelsen said Waddill pressed his hand on the baby's throat and said, "I can't find the goddam trachea," and "This baby won't stop breathing."

Cornelsen asked Waddill why he couldn't just leave the baby alone, and Waddill replied, "This baby can't live or it will be a big mess."

Waddill persisted in his efforts. A pathologist examined the baby's lungs and concluded that she'd been alive for at least 30 minutes. The neck trauma was "consistent with manual pressure, and inconsistent with saline." This pathologist also testified that only the infant's placenta and small bowel seemed to have been "significantly affected by the saline," meaning that the baby had not suffered fatal injury from exposure to the saline in-utero. The autopsy found the cause of the baby's death to have been "manual strangulation." The baby's gestational age was determined to have been 29 to 31 weeks at autopsy.

Had Waddill not strangled her, Mary's baby would likely have survived and even thrived.

Now, according to Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, it's a violation of the mother's constitutional rights to provide routine medical care to a baby born live as a result of an abortion attempt. Which means that by Obama's standards, the nurses in this case were in the wrong, committing a horrible assault on Mary's rights. By Obama's standards, Waddill was a hero, bravely providing comprehensive reproductive health care to Mary.

What do you think?

What media bias?

This was taken verbatim from an ABC News affiliate (emphasis mine):

A pro-choice group shifts into full gear to fight an abortion ban in South Dakota. The Campaign for Healthy Families announces the launch of a massive campaign tomorrow in the nation's capital.

The group claims anti-choice forces are using South Dakota to further their agenda to overturn Roe vs Wade.

South Dakotans rejected a law to outlaw abortions in 2006 and voters head back to the polls in November to decide on a similar ban.

The Campaign for Healthy Families kicks off their effort Tuesday at eight o'clock at the National Press Club in Washington.

It also looks as if it's taken verbatim from an abortion-advocacy press release.

These people should be ashamed of themselves. But then, if you think killing babies is okay, I guess blatant bias like this is no big deal, right?

And catch this! When I emailed the News Director and scolded him for allowing such blatant bias, he sent me this lame response:

As far as I know, groups supporting the ballot measure will not be appearing before the National Press Club on Tuesday. That in fact is: that’s what the story is about – the group is launching its campaign against it on a national stage. We will have more coverage on Tuesday from the perspective that they’re taking their campaign to a national level. No doubt we will have reaction locally from people who support the measure tomorrow.

So you see, you really don’t need to push the bias button.

Does this guy's wife work for Planned Parenthood or something? Since when it is not bias to refer to one side of a contentious issue using the term the other side uses to denigrate them? He's not calling the "Campaign for Healthy Families" pro-abortion, which they are.

Another one to share with NewsBusters!

UPDATE: After an email exchange Mr. Peterson relented slightly and changed "anti-choice" to "anti-abortion", which is still biased but at least accurate. Here's the screen capture showing the original wording:



Here's a close-up:



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1923: One woman dies, another implicated

On August 11, 1923, 26-year-old Martha Byzynski died at Chicago's St. Mary's Hospital from an abortion performed that day. The coroner named Jane Worchowski as the person responsible. Worchowski's profession is given as nurse or midwife.

What percentage of pre-legalization abortions were done by nurses, midwives, and other people who weren't doctors but still had medical training?
Less than 1%
About 4%
About 30%
Over 50%

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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It's not working! Let's do more of it!

High abortion rate worries NY experts

In most of the United States, 24 abortions are carried out for every 100 live births. In New York, 72 abortions occur for every 100 live births.

The continuing boom in abortions—90,157 were performed in the city in 2006, the last year for which statistics are available—apparently means that many women are using abortion as their birth control method of choice. ....

No surprise here. But then we get to hear a public health official say something truly insane, at least according to Albert Einstein, who was credited with defining insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

The easy availability of abortion and not enough access to affordable contraception may be reasons behind the city's high abortion rate. An average of 250 abortions are performed in the city each day at more than 200 clinics and doctor's offices.

And even though free or low-cost contraception is offered through 59 publicly funded programs at 218 sites in New York state, mostly in New York City, more could be provided, says Deborah Kaplan, deputy commissioner of the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

“To me, the problem is access,” says Ms. Kaplan. “If we improved access to contraceptives, there would be a reduction in abortion.”

You can't spit in New York City without hitting someplace that's dispensing cheap or free birth control, but still the abortion rate is astronomical. The proposed solution? MORE BIRTH CONTROL!

More access to contraception means more people engaging in sexual intercourse in untenable situations. Now, I know that this is a heretical thing to say in this day and age, but SEXUAL INTERCOURSE IS WHAT CAUSES PREGNANCY. The more you do it, the more likely you are to get pregnant.

The lowest rates and rations of abortions are in Idaho, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

In the Alan Guttmacher Institutes's Contraception Counts grading system:

Idaho:
* 22nd in service availability
* 26th in laws and policies
* 30th in public funding
* 26th overall

Wyoming:
* 5th in service availability
* 26th in laws and policies
* 3rd in public funding
* 7th overall

South Dakota:
* 40th in service availability
* 40th in laws and policies
* 37th in public funding
* 44th overall

Only Wyoming gets what the AGI would consider any good scores, but they're considered pretty sucky, by AGI standards, on "laws and policies". Idaho and South Dakota, on the other hand, rank 26th and 44th for "preventing unintended pregnancy" even though they actually rank 1st and 3rd for actually having low rates of pregnancies so troublesome that they land the mother on the abortion table.

The AGI doesn't show New York City separately, but you can see here how they rank the state as a whole:
* 25th in service availability
* 3rd in laws and policies
* 13th in public funding
* 5th overall

"Overall", the Alan Guttmacher Institute ranks New York State 5th in "pregnancy prevention" efforts. I'd have to suggest that maybe these "prevention" efforts are, in New York City at least, failing miserably. Maybe New York City needs to take some lessons from Idaho.

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"Are Democrats Now Pro-Life?"

ABC News Asks: 'Are Democrats Now Pro-Life?':

Today ABC News's Web site asks "Are Democrats Now Pro-Life? As Convention Draws Near, New Talk of a Pro-Life Presence." The story points out that after many years of being strongly pro-choice, "the party and its presumptive nominee, Barack Obama, are rethinking how they talk about the issue."

....

Diverse views on abortion? Not likely. NARAL Pro-Choice America used to travel under the more honest name of the National Abortion Rights Action League. It still rates members of Congress based on abortion votes. Its most recent scorecard for the U.S. Senate shows 45 members achieving a 100% pro-choice rating.

Of that number, only three are Republicans. The remaining 100 percenters are Democrats and independent Senators Lieberman and Sanders, who caucus with the Democrats. The tally for the House of Representatives shows a similar pattern. Overwhelmingly, Democrats - including presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama ... - vote in favor of abortion.

The Democratic party isn't very open to dissent on abortion. Bob Casey was silenced at the 1992 Democratic National Convention because he wanted to -- gasp! -- speak heretical words in support of life. The Minnesota delegates got beaten up in front of TV cameras -- footage you and I will never see -- for holding prolife and pro-Casey signs. NewsBusters is guessing that ABC News is trying to present Democrats as moderate, as not being in the hip pocket of the abortion lobby. I, for one, am not buying it.

Search: A Planned Parenthood supporter

Jessica Greenbush: Jessica is one of the people who signed the hoax-oriented Planned Parenthood petition attacking CPCs.

Jessica added the comment, "I have a right to put my tax dollars where I want them to be or remove them from where I don't want them to be. I do not support this false clinic issue. Please do not make me pay for something I don't believe in. You wouldn't want that done to you."

Think how we feel, Jessica, when our tax dollars are going to Planned Parenthood and paying for this slander against CPCs. Not to mention the other lying and bad behavior PP engages in.

And, Jessica, you have every right to think it was okay for Planned Parenthood to refer Christi Stile to a dangerous facility that didn't have resuscitation equipment, but why should those of us who object have our tax dollars fund such referrals? We didn't want to buy permanent brain damage for this girl with our tax dollars.



Our tax dollars kept the doors open in the Planned Parenthood where Edrica Goode was given fatal "care" by a nurse who ignored obvious symptoms of vaginal infection. Edrica died a horrible death. If you want your money to keep open the doors of the place that killed her, make private donations. Don't ask us to fund such slovenly care for young women.

Our tax dollars were also keeping the doors open at the Planned Parenthood that let Diana Lopez bleed to death. We didn't want our tax dollars to help purchase a life without a mother for two little boys. We didn't want our tax dollars facilitating any of these deaths. They may be okay with you and your fellow Planned Parenthood supporters, but we prolifers object strenuously.

So, Jennifer, you can look at this death and grief and think that it's okay to spend our tax dollars making sure such things keep happening. But we prefer happy endings like this one:



What I'd like to know is why people like you object.

Somebody needs to check ads regularly

911 Callers Told of Carnage at Texas Bus Wreck Scene

The bus company was obviously advertising, so that this church group could find it to arrange the charter. Whenever there's any type of overseeing entity, there needs to be somebody whose job it is to check advertisements periodically to see that everybody who's running ads is actually being overseen.

I've seen this often enough in abortion -- places openly operating, figuring nobody's ever going to question them. Right now the only people checking to see if they're licensed and operating legally seems to be prolifers. (Though it's possible to just name your private practice so it looks like a licensed clinic, so I think we need to have some truth in advertising there, where doctors have to make it plain whether or not they're running a clinic or not.)

Having a licensing process is all very well and good, but it can also give the impression that all entities advertising a service are licensed.