Tag Archives: Roe v. Wade

Exactly Where Do We Go After Roe v. Wade?

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The overturning of Roe v. Wade was a constitutional victory as well as a moral one. The federal government has no business getting involved in abortion. Of course the federal government is involved in a lot of things it shouldn’t be involved in (according to the Tenth Amendment), so I guess it was not unusual that it would be involved in abortion. It is a difficult issue, and pro-life Republicans need to proceed carefully when speaking about it. I believe that the ‘pro-life’ position is the correct one, but again, we need to be careful when we speak. A Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion would be as unconstitutional as Roe v. Wade. This is truly a matter that should be left to the states.

On Monday, The Daily Wire posted an article about a recent interview of President Trump by NBC’s Kristen Welker.

The article reports:

“The radical people on this are really the Democrats that say after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months, and even after birth, you’re allowed to terminate the baby,” Trump told Welker during the interview.

“Mr. President, Democrats aren’t saying that,” Welker responded.

Moments later Trump said, “I said with Hillary Clinton when we had the debate, I made a statement, ‘rip the baby out of the womb’ in the ninth month. You’re allowed to do that, and you shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

“Again, no one is arguing for that. That’s not a part of anyone’s platform, Mr. President,” Welker said.

Besides the untold number of abortion activists who advocate for abortion on demand up to birth, a slew of states currently allow abortion at any point in the pregnancy.

Alaska, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. all allow abortion with no gestational limits.

While high-profile Democrats often hedge on whether they support any gestational limits on abortion, some have come right out and admitted they support abortion up to the moment of birth.

Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) was direct about his stance during a Fox News segment in June.

“Is there a cutoff for you before [the due date]?” host Shannon Bream asked Cardin.

“No, to me, it’s a reproductive, it’s a health care decision. It’s up to women to make that decision,” Cardin responded.

If President Trump had not had the information at hand about abortion, the viewers would have been left with the impression that he was not telling the truth. Truth is only one on many ways to fight the abortion lobby.

Changing Cultures Result In Changing Laws

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During the 1920’s and pretty much through the 1980’s smoking was portrayed as glamorous. From the 1920’s to the 1950’s Hollywood movies collaborated with film studios to place their products on screen, and they even paid movie stars to appear in cigarette advertising campaigns. Cigarette ads showed couples on exotic beaches or exotic tourist locations. The effort was made to associate cigarettes with travel, success, and glamor. In 1966, America began to require warning labels on cigarette packages. In 1970, cigarette advertising was banned from television and radio. In the 1980’s America began to ban smoking on airplanes. At first the ban only applied to smaller planes. In 1988, President Reagan signed a bill that banned smoking on airplanes. Beginning in the 1970’s, there was an effort to de-glamorize smoking. Anti-smoking ads appeared on television showing people in the hospital wasting away from cancer and lung disease. Restaurants set up non-smoking areas (later removed, sending smokers outside). Gradually smokers were deprived of their right to smoke and looked down upon. (I say this as an observer–I never smoked). Advertising and cultural pressure worked–in 1965, 45 percent of Americans were smokers. In 2015, that number was 15.2 percent. There is one small caveat though–in 1915, a nationwide survey  showed that the use of pot has surpassed cigarette smoking for the first time (article here). In 2020, 12.5 percent of Americans smoked. The culture changed, and gradually Americans changed their behavior. I would like to see the same thing happen with abortion now that Roe versus Wade has been overturned.

Because Roe versus Wade has been overturned, each state is allowed to make its own laws on abortion. It will be illegal in some states and abortion up until birth will be legal in other states. It’s time we tell the truth about abortion (just like it was a while before the tobacco companies told the truth about cigarettes). Just as the tobacco industry was a powerful lobby with lots of money to donate to political campaigns, Planned Parenthood (the leading abortion provider in the country), through related organizations donates large amounts of money to political campaigns and funds large amounts of political advertising and other advertising.

Planned Parenthood says that the child is simply a blob of tissue. Science has known for a long time that is not true. Planned Parenthood doesn’t mention the emotional scars many women experience after an abortion. Planned Parenthood doesn’t tell you about the increased risk of breast cancer in women who have had abortions. Planned Parenthood doesn’t tell you that an abortion is like any other medical procedure in that it carries risks. I personally know a number of women who were not able to have children after a legal abortion because of the scarring.

It’s time for the facts about abortion to be publicly shouted so that the culture surrounding abortion can change. I want abortion to be as socially unacceptable as smoking. Crisis Pregnancy Centers need to be supported, and pregnant women in a difficult situation need to get whatever help they need. There needs to be a reasonable alternative to getting an abortion, and the abortion industry needs to go bankrupt.

 

Has This Lady Read The U.S. Constitution?

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On Friday, The Hill posted an article about a recent comment by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

The article reports:

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said on Thursday at a conference that the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is tied to its conformity to public opinion, Reuters first reported.

“I’m not talking about any particular decision or even any particular series of decisions, but if over time the court loses all connection with the public and with public sentiment, that’s a dangerous thing for a democracy,” Kagan said at a judicial conference in Montana.

…Kagan said at the conference that the court earns its legitimacy by remaining impartial and nonpartisan.

“Overall, the way the court retains its legitimacy and fosters public confidence is by acting like a court, is by doing the kinds of things that do not seem to people political or partisan,” she said.

Kagan referenced times in history when Supreme Court justices failed to discipline themselves and instead “attempted to basically enact their own policy or political or social preferences,” saying that this puts court legitimacy at risk.

This is an amazing statement. The only thing the Supreme Court is required to be tied to is the U.S. Constitution.

On Saturday, Ed Morrissey posted the following at Hot Air:

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said on Thursday that it would be a “dangerous thing for a democracy” if the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court loses the confidence of the American public.

Speaking in public for the first time since the court’s momentous ruling last month that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, Kagan stressed the importance of the justices staying in their proper roles as judges and not dictating public policy.

The problem with Roe v. Wade actually had very little to do with abortion. The problem with Roe v. Wade was the Tenth Amendment.

The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Abortion is an issue that needs to be determined by every state–by legislators voted in by the people of that state and answerable to the people of that state. The Supreme Court simply overturned a decision that was unconstitutional. They did not end abortion–they simply left it up to each state to make the laws that the people in that state want.

Supporting Harassment Of People You Disagree With

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There are a lot of Americans lamenting the lack of civility in our current political debate. However, many of those same Americans are not willing to look at some of the roots of that incivility.

On Saturday, The New York Post reported the following:

A left-wing activist group is offering $50 to anyone who gives them the location of the six Supreme Court justices who voted last month to overturn Roe v. Wade.

ShutDownDC said it would pay the bounty to anyone who shares a “confirmed sighting” of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett or John Roberts.

The group will pay a whopping $200 if the justice was still in the location where they were sighted after 30 minutes, according to a Friday tweet.

This is not acceptable behavior, but I haven’t heard a lot of voices calling them out. The article includes a Tweet advertising that they will pay for a sighting of one of the conservative justices. Where are the voices calling for civility in American politics?

The article notes:

Twitter prohibits users from encouraging or calling on others to harass an individual or group of people, according to its rules and policies document. The platform hasn’t yet commented on why the bounties don’t violate its rules, Fox News reported.

ShutDownDC’s public bounty offer came after protesters affiliated with the group targeted Kavanaugh while he dined at a Morton’s steakhouse in Washington DC Wednesday evening. Kavanaugh was ultimately forced to flee the eatery through a back door.

This is a new low in American politics and needs to be discouraged strongly. This is harassment of people with opposing views. What we need is honest debate–not harassment.

 

Another Story The Mainstream Media Is Hoping We Will Forget

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On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article with the following headline, “Will America Ever Find Out Who the Supreme Court Leaker Is?” That is a very good question. Each Justice is allowed four law clerks, and there is a support staff. However, the number of people who would have had access to a draft of a brief would be very limited. We really should know by now who leaked, and the person who leaked should be facing severe consequences. It is odd that we don’t know.

The article reports:

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court officially ended its term after releasing final opinions on a number of cases. 

But the Supreme Court still hasn’t revealed who leaked the draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization at the beginning of May. 

…The leak not only rocked the Supreme Court, where trust and confidentiality are crucial, but prompted violent pro-abortion activists to launch a number of attacks on crisis pregnancy centers and illegally converge on the homes of conservative justices. Democrats have called for court-packing and even the elimination of the Supreme Court. Last week, President Joe Biden attacked justices on foreign soil.

…On June 24, the Court released the final opinion on Dobbs. It was largely unchanged and was nearly identical to the leaked draft opinion. The Department of Justice has expressed little interest in exploring potential criminal consequences for the leaker. 

I can only assume that the leak came from the political left–the Justice Department does not seem to have prioritized the case (as I believe they would have if the leak came from the right). I suspect the media (and the Biden administration) are simply hoping that we will forget about the entire matter by the end of summer and it will never be brought up again. I really think that if the Republicans take Congress in the mid-terms, they have some serious investigating to do in a lot of areas.

The Abortion Ruling Has Been Released

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On Friday, John Hinderaker reported at Power Line Blog on Friday that the Supreme Court had released its decision on the Dobbs case.

Townhall posted a similar article on Friday.

John Hinderaker reported:

The Supreme Court released its opinions in the Dobbs case this morning. Consistent with the leaked draft by Justice Alito, it overrules the Roe and Casey decisions. You can read the opinions here. I haven’t had time yet to review Alito’s majority opinion to see how closely it conforms to what was leaked.

The vote was 6-3, with Chief Justice Roberts concurring in the result. He would have upheld the Mississippi statute without entirely overruling Roe. Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh wrote concurring opinions.

Townhall reports:

The Supreme Court issued an opinion Monday morning in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. Justices ruled 5-4 to uphold Dobbs, which limits abortion to 15-weeks in Mississippi, effectively overturning Roe v. Wade and returning abortion law to the states. The majority opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito. 

“Now today, the Court rightly overrules Roe and Casey—two of this Court’s “most notoriously incorrect” sub- stantive due process decisions,” Alito wrote. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”

The ruling comes more than a month after a draft opinion of the case showed five justices planned to overturn Roe, with Justice Samuel Alito writing about the decision. The draft opinion is nearly identical to the final ruling. 

This ruling does not end legal abortion–it simply allows each state to make its own decision on the matter. The theory behind the federalism principles that our Founding Fathers embraced was that the people in the states, who were the closest to the voters, should be the people making the majority of the laws. Roe vs. Wade was unconstitutional as it ignored the Tenth Amendment.

The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

We need to pay attention to the documents involved in the founding and establishment of America.

The Impact Of The Leak

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On Saturday, NewsMax posted an article featuring Justice Clarence Thomas’ comments about the leak of the Supreme Court draft of the abortion decision. Notice that somehow the leaker has not yet been identified.

The article reports:

Justice Clarence Thomas says the Supreme Court has been changed by the shocking leak of a draft opinion earlier this month. The opinion suggests the court is poised to overturn the right to an abortion recognized nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade.

The conservative Thomas, who joined the court in 1991 and has long called for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, described the leak as an unthinkable breach of trust.

“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it,” he said while speaking at a conference Friday evening in Dallas.

…Thomas, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush, said it was beyond “anyone’s imagination” before the May 2 leak of the opinion to Politico that even a line of a draft opinion would be released in advance, much less an entire draft that runs nearly 100 pages. Politico has also reported that in addition to Thomas, conservative justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett had voted with the draft opinion’s author, Samuel Alito, to overrule Roe v. Wade and a 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that affirmed Roe’s finding of a constitutional right to abortion.

Thomas said that previously, “if someone said that one line of one opinion” would be leaked, the response would have been: “Oh, that’s impossible. No one would ever do that.”

“Now that trust or that belief is gone forever,” Thomas said at the Old Parkland Conference, which describes itself as a conference “to discuss alternative proven approaches to tackling the challenges facing Black Americans today.”

There is a need for confidentiality in Supreme Court negotiations and drafts. Justices need to be free to offer opinions, popular or unpopular, to reach a consensus on a decision. Knowing that drafts or notes from these deliberations are subject to being leaked could seriously impact the debates needed to rule on an issue. It bothers me that no one has yet been held responsible for the leak (only a small number of people had access to the draft), and the news reports do not see to be interested in finding out who the leaker is. This leak needs to be dealt with quickly and strongly in order to prevent future leaks.

Not Everyone Wants Roe v. Wade To Stay In Place

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One of the things that seems to be getting lost in the debate over Roe v. Wade is what the consequences of overturning the law would be. Overturning Roe v. Wade will not make abortion illegal in America. Overturning Roe v. Wade will allow every state to set its own abortion guidelines. It may be that abortion may be illegal in some states, but American women will still have access to abortion. It may not be as convenient, and possibly that will cause women to rethink their options. Also, overturning Roe v. Wade will have a negative impact on the campaign coffers of most Democrats. That may be the reason this fight has gotten so nasty. Some of the Democrats in Congress want abortion up until birth to be legal in every state. Attempting to get a law passed to codify that did not go well.

On Wednesday, Townhall reported the following:

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has repeatedly shown his ineptitude when it comes to leading Democrats in the upper chamber, and he did so again in spectacular fashion on Wednesday afternoon. In what he seems to think was a grand gesture to prove his party’s commitment to a woman’s (birthing person’s?) right to kill her unborn child only put Democrats on the record supporting a bill that’s more radical than Roe ever was.

After the unprecedented leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion signaling that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, Schumer jumped into action and called for the passage of a bill to supposedly “codify” Roe in federal law. But he once again failed to do the math among his own caucus or the Senate as a whole before holding what became nothing but a failed show vote to prove Democrats support radical abortion rights that go beyond what even most pro-abortion Americans support.

The vote to break a Republican filibuster and move to the final vote on the “Women’s Health Protection Act” came down 51-49, with every Democrat but one voting to move ahead — Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia joined all the Republicans to block the legislation from moving forward.

The article details the Senate bill:

In summary, the Democratic bill would make elective abortions legal across the entire country for all nine months of pregnancy (with “mental health” loopholes eliminating any real limitations), eliminating virtually all existing state-level restrictions (including lopsidedly popular ones), gutting conscience protections for healthcare workers who don’t want to participate in abortions, allowing non-doctors to facilitate the abortions, and likely forcing taxpayers to finance all of it.  Short of endorsing post-birth infanticide or instituting CCP-style compulsory abortions, it’s hard to imagine a more extreme piece of legislation on this issue.  Dressing this up as “codifying Roe” is astoundingly dishonest, yet it’s mindlessly — or perhaps not so mindlessly — repeated by journalists, ad nauseam.

I suspect Senator Schumer knew that the bill would fail. What the bill probably did was energize that small fringe of the Democrat party that supports unlimited abortion. I will admit that I have a hard time understanding why some people are fighting so hard for the right to kill a baby.

Losing Civility Courtesy Of The White House

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On Thursday, The Daily Wire reported the following:

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that there was no “official U.S. Government position” on where protesters chose to gather, even if that meant they were publishing the home addresses of sitting Supreme Court justices.

After congratulating Psaki’s incoming replacement Karine Jean-Pierre on being named President Joe Biden’s next press secretary, Fox News’ Peter Doocy turned to the topic of planned protests over the recently leaked early opinion draft indicating that the Supreme Court could be poised to overturn landmark abortion cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

The article reports the following dialog:

“Not about yesterday, just about moving forward — these activists posted a map with the home addresses of the Supreme Court justices,” Doocy said. “Is that the kind of thing this president wants to help your side make their point?”

“Look, I think the president’s view is that there’s a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across this country about what they saw in that leaked document,” Psaki replied, saying again that the White House supported peaceful protest.

“He doesn’t care if they’re protesting outside the Supreme Court or outside someone’s private residence?” Doocy asked.

“I don’t have an official U.S. Government position on where people protest,” Psaki replied. “I want it — we want it of course to be peaceful … I think we shouldn’t lose the point here, the reason people are protesting is because women across the country are worried about their fundamental rights that have been law for 50 years. Their rights to make choices about their own bodies and their own health care are at risk. That’s why people are protesting — they’re unhappy, they’re scared.”

When does protesting become harassment? How much violence is the political left willing to tolerate to move their agenda forward (think riots of the summer of 2020)? When the political left disrupted the Senate during the Kavanaugh hearings, how is that different from January 6th? Is anyone protecting the rights of American citizens simply trying to do their jobs?

Does This Violate RICO Laws?

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The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act was passed in 1970 as a way to deal with organized crime. It has since been misused to go after abortion protesters and other people, but it was originally passed to fight organized crime. I think it should be used on any person who violates the law in their protest of the Supreme Court leak regarding Roe v. Wade. On Thursday, The Federalist posted an article about plans by an pro-abortion group regarding protests of the recent Supreme Court leak.

The article reports:

A left-wing group is gathering abortion activists to march at Supreme Court justices’ homes next week, with stipends available for some protesters who participate in the Roe v. Wade crusade.

Beginning on Sunday, the group organized under the moniker “Ruth Sent Us” will embark on a week-long demonstration, with plans to protest outside the homes of the six conservative Supreme Court justices, whose alleged addresses have been published on the group’s website.

“Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics,” reads the group’s website, advertising monetary compensation for recruits. “Are you a muralist or chalk artist? Are you a graphic designer who would like to contribute remotely? Large-scale art will be included in the protests against the Supreme Court. Stipends available.”

What is the difference between protesting and intimidation?

The article concludes:

Demonstrators with “Ruth Sent Us” appear to be coordinating with several allied activist groups including Code Pink, Kavanaugh Off Our Court, and Black Lives Matter. While the website advertises “peaceful protests,” the recent memories of Black Lives Matter riots terrorizing the country remain fresh in the minds of the public as communities are still rebuilding. This week’s violence in Los Angeles offers little comfort.

Harassment of conservative policymakers at their private homes has become an increasingly popular tactic among left-wing activists, who demonstrated at Kavanaugh’s home in September over anxieties related to Roe v. Wade. Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Fox News prime-time anchor Tucker Carlson have each also suffered from protesters staking out their D.C.-area residences.

There is a difference between protesting and harassment. As soon as a protester steps on your lawn and you ask him to leave, if he stays there, he is trespassing. Trespassing laws need to be upheld. If people want to protest in the street, they should be allowed to, but as soon as a protester steps on a lawn, he should be arrested.

Like Two-Year Olds Throwing Temper Tantrums

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the Democrat’s reaction to the President’s plan to appoint a Supreme Court Justice in the coming six weeks.

The article includes a screenshot of a tweet by Gavin Newsom’s Chief of Staff Ann O’Leary:

Maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me that laying your body on the floor of the Senate might be considered radical.

The article details some of the threats the Democrats have made:

Democrats are determined to prevent the Republican President and Republican Senate to nominate and confirm the next Supreme Court Justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The 87-year-old Ginsburg passed away at home on Friday.

Democrats are threatening impeachment of President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr.

And Democrats are even threatening to block access to the Republican senators from entering the US Senate Chamber in the US Capitol Building.

So what is this actually about? It’s about two things. The first is the fact that in recent years the Supreme Court has become an oligarchy making laws and impacting American lives in ways our Founding Fathers never intended. The Supreme Court in recent years has made things legal on a federal level that Americans never had a chance to vote for or hold their elected officials accountable for. The reason Congress is tasked with the responsibility for making laws is that the voters can hold them accountable for their actions. The Supreme Court Justices serve for life and are not accountable to the voters. The second is the fear of the political left that a conservative court will overturn Roe v. Wade. There are a few misconceptions in this. Overturning Roe v. Wade will not end abortion in America. Ending Roe v. Wade will simply allow every state to set its own rules regarding abortion. There have been a number of judicial scholars who have stated that the Roe v. Wade decision was flawed. The political left is well aware of this and wants to protect the decision.

Planned Parenthood (through its political action spin-offs) has invested a lot of money into Congressional campaigns to protect the abortion industry (which is a million dollar industry). This investment has allowed abortions and the practice of selling aborted baby parts to continue without interference from Congress. I have often wondered how history will view this practice.

 

The Logic Of This Escapes Me

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One America News posted an article today about some recent comments by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

The article reports:

In an interview with the Des Moines Register Tuesday, Gillibrand specifically took aim at the pro-life movement. She compared pro-life beliefs to racism, and suggested the ideology is no longer acceptable in today’s society.

Gillibrand vowed to only appoint justices who support Roe v. Wade, and mocked those who disagree with her radical pro-abortion stance.

“There’s some issues that have such moral clarity that we have as a society decided that the other side is not acceptable,” she stated. “Imagine saying that it’s okay to appoint a judge who is racist or anti-Semitic or homophobic…all these efforts by President Trump and other ultra radical conservative judges and justices to impose their faith on Americans is contrary to our constitution.”

Gillibrand just became the last candidate to qualify for the primary debates. She hopes to climb above the two-percent threshold to qualify for the second debate.

So according to Senator Gillibrand, not wanting people to kill babies is the equivalent of racism. Is she aware that in America today, the average black woman is almost five times more likely to have an abortion than the average white woman. Abortion is the current genocide. That would seem to me to contradict the idea that opposing abortion is racism. However, how many Americans will agree with the Senator without considering the total lack of logic?

 

A Sobering Thought

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill Tuesday night, expanding abortion access and codifying a woman’s right to abort under state law.

Cuomo, a Democrat, signed the Reproductive Health Act on the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, making good on his promise to add abortion protections to the state constitution, according to the New York Post.

Roe v. Wade gave women the constitutional right to an abortion under the 14th Amendment on Jan. 22, 1973. The ruling extended the right to abort up to the point of fetal “viability,” a slippery term that continues to foster debate as neonatal care advances.

The bill codified a woman’s right to abort under state law and removes abortion from New York’s criminal code.

The bill will also allow women to have abortions after 24 weeks in cases where “there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health,” according to the legislation. Nurse practitioners, physicians’ assistants and qualified health care professionals can provide abortions under the legislation.

Meanwhile, CNS News reported:

Last Thursday, Jan. 17, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated that undercover video footage filmed by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), which showed Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses, was “authentic” and “not deceptively edited.”

The federal appeals court also vacated an injunction by a district court, which had barred the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) from terminating Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood affiliates throughout Texas. The federal appeals court sent the case back to the district court.

…In 2015, the CMP, a pro-life organization, released several hours of undercover video footage that showed employees and doctors from various Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing potential research partnerships with individuals who expressed interest in obtaining body parts of fetuses aborted during the second trimester of pregnancy and paying a handling and shipping fee for those parts.

After the footage was released, the OIG sent Planned Parenthood affiliates a notice of termination of their Medicaid agreements. The OIG argued that the affiliates had violated “accepted medical standards, as reflected in federal and state law,” and were no longer “qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner.”

The article at CNS News concludes:

CMP founder David Daleiden wrote that the court’s decision “vindicated” the CMP’s “citizen journalism work” by “debunking Planned Parenthood’s smear that the videos were ‘heavily edited’ or ‘doctored.’”

“Now, it is time for the U.S. Department of Justice to do its job and hold Planned Parenthood accountable to the law,” Daleiden added.

Since the videos were released in 2015, Planned Parenthood has claimed CMP’s footage was heavily and deceptively edited. Many mainstream news outlets have reported that the footage was altered or distorted, using, as the basis for these claims, a Fusion GPS report that was commissioned and funded by Planned Parenthood.

It’s amazing how the same names keep coming up.

In April 2016, Life News reported:

On average, Planned Parenthood receives approximately $500 million a year in taxpayer funds, as a GAO report indicated last year.

Theoretically, this money does not pay for abortions.

In September 2018l Live Action reported:

Taxpayer-funded abortion corporation Planned Parenthood has announced its political arms are joining other “progressive” groups to invest an “unprecedented” $30 million to influence who is elected to key state and federal offices in the 2018 midterm elections.

Does anyone else object to the idea that an organization that takes money from the federal government contributes to political campaigns?

 

America’s Genocide

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Yesterday Jason Riley at The Wall Street Journal posted an article about a rarely mentioned item in the debate over President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

The article states:

As Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination tees up another national debate about reproductive rights, is it too much to ask that abortion’s impact on the black population be part of the discussion?

When the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, polling showed that blacks were less likely than whites to support abortion. Sixties-era civil rights activists like Fannie Lou Hamer and Whitney Young had denounced the procedure as a form of genocide. Jesse Jackson called abortion “murder” and once told a black newspaper in Chicago that “we used to look for death from the man in the blue coat and now it comes in a white coat.”

I don’t know why Jesse Jackson changed his mind. It is very unfortunate that he did.

The article cites the impact of abortion on minorities:

What’s not in doubt is the outsize toll that abortion has taken on the black population post-Roe. In New York City, thousands more black babies are aborted than born alive each year, and the abortion rate among black mothers is more than three times higher than it is for white mothers. According to a city Health Department report released in May, between 2012 and 2016 black mothers terminated 136,426 pregnancies and gave birth to 118,127 babies. By contrast, births far surpassed abortions among whites, Asians and Hispanics.

Nationally, black women terminate pregnancies at far higher rates than other women as well. In 2014, 36% of all abortions were performed on black women, who are just 13% of the female population. The little discussed flip side of “reproductive freedom” is that abortion deaths far exceed those via cancer, violent crime, heart disease, AIDS and accidents. Racism, poverty and lack of access to health care are the typical explanations for these disparities. But black women have much higher abortion rates even after you control for income. Moreover, other low-income ethnic minorities who experience discrimination, such as Hispanics, abort at rates much closer to white women than black women.

Those are chilling statistics.

Many years ago (in the late 1960’s), I sat in the living room at a party that I was invited to because of the person I was visiting (those at the party were way above my pay grade!) and listened to some highly educated people express fear that the black population would overtake their city if the growth of that population was not checked. These were otherwise compassionate people who would have been offended at being called racists (although that’s what they were). This was a major southern city, and the people stating this opinion had no problem with what they were saying. These were people in their twenties who were among our best and brightest and probably became political leaders as they matured. Those statements have always stayed with me, and I wonder if they are happy with what has happened to the black population under Roe v. Wade. It seems to me that the pro-abortion people need to look at the damage abortion has caused to the black community before they start demonizing people who want to stop the genocide.

Protecting American Women (Even When They May Not Want To Be Protected)

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Planned Parenthood goes ballistic any time any changes are made to abortion laws in America. First of all, I need to mention that abortion should be a matter left to individual states. The U.S. Constitution (Tenth Amendment) states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” Since abortion is not specifically delegated to the federal government, it should be left to the individual states. However, since Roe v. Wade. the federal government has pretty much taken charge on the issue. With that in mind, a recent Supreme Court case has allowed a change to abortion law that will protect women to stay in place. However, not everyone will see it that way.

The American Spectator posted an article today about the recent change.

The article reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition by Planned Parenthood to review an Arkansas statute requiring a provider of abortion-inducing drugs to have a contractual relationship with a doctor who has admitting privileges at a hospital. The point of the law is to assure that, if a patient has an adverse reaction to some abortifacient, there will be a physician and a hospital available to provide appropriate medical treatment.

No doctor was crazy enough to clean up behind Planned Parenthood, however, so the abortion mill sued. A district court did enjoin the statute, but that injunction was vacated by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Inevitably, SCOTUS found Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma v. Jegley lying on its doorstep. But the justices declined to take this legal orphan in, rejecting it without comment.

Abortion is a serious medical procedure. All medical procedures have risks. I had a friend who had a mole removed and died in the recovery room. The unexpected is always a possibility. Having a doctor with admitting privileges at a hospital on call when an abortion is taking place–whether it is drug induced or surgical–is a good idea. It protects women.

Is This What We Had In Mind?

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Abortion has been legal in America since 1973. For those Americans under forty, it was an established fact of life before they were born. Abortion is one of the most financially lucrative industries in the United States because of the lack of regulation (something that is changing in many states) and because the government subsidizes Planned Parenthood,  one of the largest providers of abortions. So what is abortion about?

On Wednesday, National Review posted an article titled, “We Only Whisper It.” The article deals with some recent statements by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a recent interview.

The article reports:

Speaking about such modest restrictions on abortion as have been enacted over the past several years, Justice Ginsburg lamented that “the impact of all these restrictions is on poor women.” Then she added: “It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people.”

…In an earlier interview, she described the Roe v. Wade decision as being intended to control population growth, “particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” She was correct in her assessment of Roe; the co-counsel in that case, Ron Weddington, would later advise President Bill Clinton: “You can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy, and poor segment of our country,” by making abortifacients cheap and universally available. “It’s what we all know is true, but we only whisper it.”

I thought America was the land of opportunity–not the land of killing children because they were born into poor households. Some of our greatest leaders were born into poverty. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas grew up in poverty and now sits on the bench with Ms. Ginsburg.

The article points out a basic philosophical difference between those who encourage abortion and those who oppose it:

There are two ways to account for humans beings: as assets, or as liabilities. For those who see the world the way Justice Ginsburg does — which is also the way Barack Obama does, along with most of his party — human beings are a liability. That is why they fundamentally misunderstand challenges such as employment; if you see people as a liability, then you see labor in terms of “creating jobs,” i.e. neutralizing that liability with a check every two weeks. It does not matter whether that labor produces anything valuable; if the liability is being met with a sufficient paycheck, problem solved. It should go without saying that Barack Obama et al. do not see themselves as liabilities. They see themselves as assets, which is how left-wing activists and Democratic functionaries justify their own enormous paychecks.

And they don’t see their own children as liabilities, either — just your kids, loser.

The alternative is to view human beings as having inherent value. In economics, that means thinking of every worker as having something potentially valuable to contribute. In broader terms, that means thinking of every person as a full member of the human family, no matter if they are healthy or sick, running marathons or profoundly disabled, Bill Gates rich or Bangladesh poor.

We need to elect leaders who value human beings. It is frightening to think that a Supreme Court Justice feels that babies born into poverty have less value than babies born into wealth. That is the kind of thinking that leads to genocide.

The Youth Factor In The Abortion Debate

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Today’s Washington Post reports that the annual March for Life in Washington began today with a huge youth Mass at the Verizon Center.  This will be the 38th annual March for Life. 

According to the article:

“More than 27,000 young people secured tickets for the morning concert, pep rally and Mass, according to the Archdiocese of Washington. For the first time, a parallel event was held at the D.C. Armory to handle the overflow crowd.”

On Friday, CNS News reported that Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) will be the keynote speaker at its Rose Dinner event that marks the end of a weekend of protests and ceremonies focused on ending abortion.

The CNS News article cites two recent news stories regarding abortion:

“One report noted that 41 percent of pregnancies in New York City end in an abortion. That figure, twice the national average, was called “chilling” by New York Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who said he was “embarrassed” for the city over the high rate of abortions.

“The second major abortion story concerns a Philadelphia abortionist, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who was charged with eight counts of murder after investigators discovered that one woman and seven babies died during botched abortion procedures that he reportedly performed.”

The CNS News story reminds us that:

“According to the liberal Guttmacher Institute, 1.2 million abortions take place in the United states each year.  Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, a little over 52 million children have been killed by abortion in America.”

There are two things to remember here.  I have heard it commented that the reason there is still debate on abortion is that the American people never actually got to vote on it.  Up until Roe v. Wade, each state had established its own rules covering abortion rights.  Roe v. Wade simply said that the federal government controlled abortion policies–not the states.  If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will not be illegal–it will become a state issue rather than a federal issue.  At that point, each state will set up its own standards and rules regarding abortion.