Obama Administration: Policing the Border Equals Forced Abortions

Just when I think the nuts in the Obama administration can't do worse, we get word that they are equating Arizona's immigration law with China's human rights abuses.

Posner said in addition to talks on freedom of religion and expression, labor rights and rule of law, officials also discussed Chinese complaints about problems with U.S. human rights, which have included crime, poverty, homelessness and racial discrimination.

He said U.S. officials did not whitewash the American record and in fact raised on its own a new immigration law in Arizona that requires police to ask about a person's immigration status if there is suspicion the person is in the country illegally.

Because requiring people to legally enter the country is every bit as big a human rights violation as forced abortion, speech and religious suppression, gulags and possibly harvesting organs for money. I'm so glad the America haters are running the government. It's really gonna make China like us.

Obama vs. Catholics

Remember when pro-lifers sounded the alarm on Barack Obama's extremely pro-choice record? Remember the liberals who came unglued when I pointed out that Obama wasn't just for abortion before birth, but actualy thought it was permissible to allow babies who survived abortion to die? And remember when conservatives pointed out that Obama has promised that "the first thing he'd do as president" was sign the Freedom of Choice Act into law, which would sweep away all state restrictions on abortion, including parental notification, waiting periods and informed consent?

Well, I guess some people are finally beginning to realize what it means.

What in the world were these bishops talking about, claiming that religious freedom in America was under attack? Keep up the hysterics, boys, I thought as I scanned the latest story, and this will be birth control all over again: Your lips are moving but no one can hear you. And the most ludicrous line out of them, surely, was about how, under Obama, Catholic hospitals that provide obstetric and gynecological services might soon be forced to perform abortions or close their doors. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago warned of "devastating consequences" to the health care system, insisting Obama could force the closure of all Catholic hospitals in the country. That's a third of all hospitals, providing care in many neighborhoods that are not exactly otherwise overprovided for. It couldn't happen, could it?

You wouldn't think so. Only, I am increasingly convinced that it could.

Like Catholic Charities in Boston, Catholic hospitals will simply shut down rather than be forced to perform acts against their beliefs. That's one thing about that Big C Catholic church: when they say abortion is murder and they won't perform them, they mean it.

Though it's often referred to as a mere codification of Roe, FOCA, as currently drafted, actually goes well beyond that: According to the Senate sponsor of the bill, Barbara Boxer, in a statement on her Web site, FOCA would nullify all existing laws and regulations that limit abortion in any way, up to the time of fetal viability. Laws requiring parental notification and informed consent would be tossed out. While there is strenuous debate among legal experts on the matter, many believe the act would invalidate the freedom-of-conscience laws on the books in 46 states. These are the laws that allow Catholic hospitals and health providers that receive public funds through Medicaid and Medicare to opt out of performing abortions. Without public funds, these health centers couldn't stay open; if forced to do abortions, they would sooner close their doors. Even the prospect of selling the institutions to other providers wouldn't be an option, the bishops have said, because that would constitute "material cooperation with an intrinsic evil."

Who would be the ones hurt if Catholic hospitals close? Why the poor, of course. The same people that we're told need taxpayer-funded abortions. I guess there are those who think no hospital is better than hospitals which don't kill inconvenient babies.

As the author points out, the good news is that FOCA, in this form, has not been voted on in 15 years, and there are a number of pro-life Democrats in Congress now. There's no way of knowing whether FOCA would even get sent to a President Obama for a signature. But that's the same thing we said about McCain-Feingold and we all know where that got us.

Plenty of Catholics voted for Obama on the appeal of "change" and a disaffection for George Bush and Republicans in general. Somehow, I don't think FOCA was the "change" they were believin' in.

What Happened to Choice?

I've read several stories regarding the new pro-life drugstores that have sprung up in two or three places. It seems to me that such places are the perfect antidote to the harangue about pharmacists who don't want to dispense abortifacients at retail chains. Call it a free market solution to the right of conscience, if you will.

But pro-abortion (and they are pro-abortion because of their stance) supporters don't see it that way. Not only do they believe pharmacists should be required by law to dispense Plan B, birth control pills, and other medicines regardless of their personal beliefs, they want any options for pro-life pharmacists banned and these workers jailed. Don't believe me? Just read this feministing post and the comments and you'll get an idea what the real "pro-choice" supporters want.

"There's a difference between walking around, being offensive, and medical professionals intentionally denying their patients the standard of care. The first is constitutionally protected, the second is malpractice. Malpractice is not a "right" protected by an "open society." And if there's a conflict between your conscience and your job, the law solves the problem pretty well - you have a right to freedom of conscience, but you don't have a right to a pharmacists license."

"nothing would make me happier than a whole bunch of these opening up, then failing most spectacularly. think "pharmacist with $100,000 in student loans and seven children (because s/he doesn't use birth control) in a studio apartment because they refused to get over themselves" kind of failing."

"This shit needs to be illegal. If the doctor prescribes it, it is the pharmacist's obligation to provide it. Not choice. Obligation."

"Pharmacists need licenses. You deny a legal prescription, you lose your license. Period."

"This is just absolute bullshit and I'm all for people opening up their own private businesses but this is crap. You're a PHARMACIST, your JOB is to fill the prescription that the DOCTOR wrote. You are NOT the doctor and you haven't TALKED to the doctor so you don't know what the fuck is going on between the patient and the DOCTOR so it's none of your goddamn business what it's for. I don't care how much "research" YOU'VE done, either step aside or quit.

"This has absolutely nothing to do with "saving" babeez or women (love how he had to throw that in there) but keeping people, women especially, in line when it comes to sex."

Many of the commenters dismissed the notion that pharmacists dispense medications other than contraceptives and just fell into the whole "if you don't want to dispense contraceptives, don't be a pharmacist!" trap.

no one puts a gun to anyone's head and tells them they must be a pharmacist or perish: if you have ethical hangups about filling prescriptions for contraception, you should really work in a different field.

I'm sure these same commenters would agree with mandatory abortion technique training for medical students (see here for more info). Hey, so what if you're a podiatrist? The Hippocratic Oath requires you to care for the sick! Just don't read the part about not giving a woman an abortion! Must've been a misogynist!

I think pro-life pharmacies are a great idea. If you want contraceptives, you can go to CVS or a grocery store. If you don't support doling out contraceptives to 14-year-olds (with a prescription!) or consider Plan B to be killing a life, then these pharmacies provide an alternative. Unlike the shriekers complaining that, somehow, these pharmacies will take over America, it's far more likely that a pro-life pharmacy would be the sort of boutique business you'll find in large cities, not in rural areas.

Botched Abortion Leads Woman to Sue Doctors for Child Rearing Expenses (A Woman's Right to Choose)

A Woman's Right to Choose is a semi-regular feature of Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels.

A Boston woman is suing her abortion doctors after she gave birth to a healthy baby. She is suing for the costs of raising the child.

(Jennifer) Raper claimed in the three-page medical malpractice suit that she found out she was pregnant in March 2004 and decided to have an abortion for financial reasons.

Dr. Allison Bryant, a physician working for Planned Parenthood at the time, performed the procedure on April 9, 2004, but it "was not done properly, causing the plaintiff to remain pregnant," according to the complaint.

Raper then went to see Dr. Benjamin Eleonu at Boston Medical Center in July 2004, and he failed to detect the pregnancy even though she was 20 weeks pregnant at the time, the lawsuit alleges.

It was only when Raper went to the New England Medical Center emergency room for treatment of pelvic pain in late September that year that she found out she was pregnant, the suit said.

She gave birth to a daughter on Dec. 7, 2004.

She is seeking damages, including child-rearing costs.

I wonder what life will be like for this little girl growing up knowing her mother tried to kill her and then sued the doctors because she is alive?

Threats Don't Happen Just From the Right (Another Right to Choose segment)

The Right to Choose is a semi-regular feature of GPWOW designed to highlight the lies, hypocrisy, and logical fallacies associated with most pro-abortion arguments and the people who make them.

The latest meme spreading through the leftosphere is that only rightwingers threaten their opponents (see here, here, and here for starters).

Conveniently, these same people, so outraged at this behavior from fringe righties, aren't so offended when lefties say such things to women on the right.

Today, Chris Bowers is wringing his hands in a post that compares abortion clinic violence with numbnuts who send vile e-mails. He cites some statistics:

According to statistics gathered by the National Abortion Federation (NAF), an organization of abortion providers, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidences of assault or battery, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers.(...)

According to NAF, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, property crimes committed against abortion providers have included 41 bombings, 173 arsons, 91 attempted bombings or arsons, 619 bomb threats, 1630 incidences of trespassing, 1264 incidences of vandalism, and 100 attacks with butyric acid.

What those stats really mean is that in 30 years, there have been far fewer attacks on abortion providers than on your average woman walking down the street. Of course, when you look at that stat that way, it's not quite so forceful. I'm not condoning abortion clinic violence, but Chris lumps all abortion proponents, both those acting within the legal system and those renegade actors, as being murderers. This kind of rancid hyperbole from the left needs to stop. But Chris doesn't.

Over the past fifteen years, conservatives have had every possible democratic, legislative, and judicial tool at their disposal to outlaw abortion, at least somewhere. However, all of their attempts on these fronts have failed miserably. The only thing hat has worked for them has been violence committed against abortion providers. When I write "violence," I am being as nice as humanly possible. Take another look at the list of acts I quoted above, described, and tell me that it doesn't smack of a coordinated, terrorist campaign against abortion providers. Sadly, it has largely been successful. The reason there are only one, two or three abortion providers in two dozen states is because of the terrorist campaign conducted against abortion providers. As all democratic means have failed them, the only tool conservatives have successfully used to slow down abortion has been a campaign of terrorist violence against abortion providers.

The lies in this paragraph are numerous. First of all, conservatives have placed many restrictions on abortions over the last 15 years, from waiting periods to informed consent to parental notification to facilities regulations. Pro-choicers have fought every single restriction, no matter how sensible, as being an attack on "the right to choose.

Secondly, once Roe v. Wade was established, states could no longer ban abortion, and those states with abortion bans on the books had to nullify those laws. In other words, states couldn't outlaw abortion. Not that most states want to completely banish the procedure anyway. What the South Dakota case actually means is that people don't want abortion abolished without any exceptions. People usually want to make exceptions for life, rape, or incest. The South Dakota law had none of these exceptions and that's why it failed.

Finally, it has only been in the last year or so that enough conservative justices have been on the Supreme Court to possibly make any difference to Roe v. Wade, anyway. And conservative judges don't typically make law from the bench like liberal ones do. That's because they believe in stare decisis, the idea that precedent matters. That means that even laws they disagree with--like Roe--have to be applied. Chief Justice Roberts made this point during his confirmation hearings:

"Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land… There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent, as well as Casey."[

Chris's scurilous analogy between legal activities to limit abortion with violence and terrorism is as disgusting as the e-mails of which Amanda complained. And I'm still waiting for a lefty or two to admit that the right doesn't have a lock on such hate mail. But I'm not holding my breath waiting.

UPDATE: Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom has a good post on this situation.

To say that (William) Donohue doesn’t have the right to characterize these comments is as absurd as the claims of these womyn that they’ve been smeared by the practice of having their own writings reported. So, must people who feel compelled not speak out against abortion because some lunatic might grab a rifle and shoot an abortion provider? The speech is protected; there is no right, on the other hand, to protection from the fall-out that such speech might provoke. You are free to criticize someone’s beliefs or behavior, but you are not protected from having your own criticized in return. And as Jeff points out, these womyn seem to have learned nothing through this episode that may cause them to rethink their own behavior. They simply believe that others who hew to religious belief ought therefore to evince more forebearance than they themselves do, or they’re hypocrites, just as those whose religious precepts may sometimes appear to condone violence are therefore exempt from such proscriptions.

UPDATE x2: Darleen Click has an excellent post on this subject.