The Associated Press reportsthat China’s “one-child policy (is) a surprising boon” for that nation’s girls.

The remarkable story notes that “Since 1979, China’s family planning rules have barred nearly all urban families from having a second child in a bid to stem population growth. With no male heir competing for resources, parents have spent more on their daughters’ education and well-being.”

Only later in the piece do we learn the following:

With the arrival of sonogram technology in the 1980′s, some families no longer merely hoped for a boy, they were able to engineer a male heir by terminating pregnancies when the fetus was a girl.

“It is gendercide,” said Therese Hesketh, a University College London professor who has studied China‘s skewed sex ratio. “I don’t understand why China doesn’t just really penalize people who’ve had sex-selective abortions and the people who do them. The law exists but nobody enforces it.”

To combat the problem, China allows families in rural areas, where son preference is strongest, to have a second child if their first is a girl. The government has also launched education campaigns promoting girls and gives cash subsidies to rural families with daughters.

Still, 43 million girls have “disappeared” in China due to gender-selective abortion as well as neglect and inadequate access to health care and nutrition, the United Nations estimated in a report last year.

Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF’s representative to China, puts it bluntly: The one-child policy brings many benefits for girls “but they have to be born first.”

As Science Magazine writer Mara Hvistendahl’s Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men documents, the U.N. Population Fund has provided funding such that, in total, 160 million Asian women have been aborted in recent decades.

Continue reading »

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Reading Internet stories about late-term Florida abortionist James Pendergraft is like walking through a funhouse mirror – only the warped, grotesque image is the one that’s true.

For over a decade, abortion defenders have propped up this man as a hero to their movement, lauding him in their blogs, inviting him to speak at their rallies.  This man, who aborts babies as old as 27 weeks gestation and who sends women home to have abortions in their toilets or to emergency rooms for unwanted hysterectomies, has managed to continue profiting from his chain of abortion clinics for over a decade despite numerous run-ins with authorities, including repeated suspensions of his medical license.  But a little disabled girl might finally be his undoing.

In 2001 he was convicted of federal extortion charges and put behind bars after threats he made against county officials were caught on tape.  The abortion-rights crowd rallied behind him and invited him to speak at their rallies.  (Source)  His conviction was later overturned.

His license to practice was later suspended, Florida Department of Health stating that he showed “a flagrant disregard for the laws of the state of Florida and a willingness to endanger the lives and health of pregnant patients.”  (Source:  LifeNews)

After the suspension ran its course, he was suspended again.  See Operation Rescue.

Now, a morbid lawsuit over a failed abortion brought on behalf of the little girl who barely survived it has resulted in a verdict of 36 million dollars.  See Jill Stanek’s Article and LifeSiteNews.

The mainstream media has not reported on this verdict, but other sources say that attorneys on behalf of a young girl who survived one of Pendergraft’s abortions filed a lawsuit seeking a lifetime of medical care for the child, and they have won a $36 million verdict.  In 2001, the plaintiff’s mother, Carol Howard, apparently paid one of Pendergraft’s clinics $1,300 to abort her baby at 22 weeks gestation.  She was given multiple doses of RU-486, according to a source, and after 12 hours of labor left the clinic upset and in pain, later to deliver the baby girl in a hospital.  The child weighed 1 lb 6 oz at birth, and suffers from cerebral palsy, lack of function on one side of her body, strokes and brain damage, physical, emotional and cognitive delays, lung damage, chronic lung disease, and seizure disorders.  According to pro-life witnesses inside the courtroom, the Florida jury verdict orders Pendergraft to pay Howard $18,255,000 in punitive damages, $18,000,000 in compensatory damages, and over $400,000 in court costs.

Will this finally stop him?

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One of highlights of the various 2011 state legislative sessions is the successful passage of many solid pro-life bills.  According to a recent report by Guttmacher, 80 bills restricting abortion were passed in 19 states, more than tripling the 23 passed last year.  This impressive number not only sets a record for the most life-affirming bills passed in one year, but it also more than doubles the previous record of 34 bills in 2005.

Some abortion advocates suggest that this is an example of legislators with extreme right-wing social ideologies “pushing” their agenda on the people in their state who likely do not agree with them on these issues.  They even go so far as to assert that there has been an all out “attack on women” by these state legislators. 

Now, thanks to Gallup poll data released today, we can check those assertions.  Are these pro-life legislators out of touch or do they reflect the feelings of the majority of Americans?  Are women feeling attacked and fighting back, or do they support and advocate bills that require their doctor to fully inform them of potential abortion risks, show them an ultrasound, and get parental consent for minors to receive an abortion?

Gallup says:

 “Of seven abortion restrictions tested in a July 15-17Galluppoll, informing women of certain risks of an abortion in advance of performing it is the most widely favored, at 87%. Seven in 10 Americans favor requiring parental consent for minors and establishing a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions. Nearly two-thirds favor making the specific procedure known as “partial birth abortion” illegal”

Data from this poll also affirms a striking consistency in polling data that abortion is not a man verses woman issue, with men pushing pro-life views on women who just want to make choices with their pregnancies.  To the contrary, four out of seven pro-life measures addressed in this poll scored a higher percentage of support among women than men!   

Read the Poll results in their entirety for yourself here.

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A summary of adverse event reports (AERS) recently released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and obtained through Sen. Orrin Hatch’s office reveal that in the span of almost eleven years since the approval of the abortion drug, popularly known as RU-486, in the United States, at least 11 women have died as a result of complications related to taking the drug.[1]  Internationally, the number of women who have died as a result of RU-486 is at least 17.[2]

That’s not all. The dangerous complications associated with this drug continue include hemorrhaging and infection. In the U.S., at least 612 women have been hospitalized after taking RU-486; and at least 339 women required blood transfusions as a result of serious blood loss after taking the abortion drug.

Clearly highlighting the need for more stringent medical oversight, the report also indicates that 58 women were prescribed RU-486 despite having ectopic pregnancies. Yet, “[a]dministration of mifepristone and misoprostol is contraindicated in patients with confirmed or suspected ectopic pregnancy.”[3] To state it more clearly, a woman who has an ectopic pregnancy and takes the RU486 regimen places her life in danger.

It is not only women in the U.S. who are suffering as a result of chemical abortion, it is a worldwide trend. A recent Australian health department audit of nearly 10,000 abortions performed in 2009 and 2010 compared the safety of RU-486 with surgical abortion, with the outcome being in the words of one major media outlet “The Abortion Pill ‘Less Safe than Surgery’”. The Australian report showed that 1 in 18 patients who used RU-486 had to be re-admitted to hospitals (a total of 5.7% of women vs. only .4% of surgical abortions.) The same study revealed that as many as 33% of women who had second trimester RU-486 abortions required some form of surgical intervention.[4]

Marketing the abortion drug as simple and painless, such as taking an aspirin, is dangerously misleading to women. RU-486 is in a class of drugs categorized as selective progesterone receptor modulators, which, in addition to blocking progesterone necessary for the developing baby, also suppresses a woman’s immune system. Additionally, it is sometimes the case that the remains of the pregnancy are not entirely expelled from a woman’s uterus, causing infection and other problems.

Despite the seriousness and intensity of adverse effects related to RU-486, use of this form of abortion is on the rise, and frequently the regimen is dispensed with less medical oversight than surgical abortion. Even more troubling, nationally and internationally, “telemed” dissemination of RU-486 is increasing.[5] Telemed abortions involved doctors proscribing RU-486 through skype or over the internet rather than during a patient visit.

The bottom line is that abortion drugs are not about improving women’s health but are more accurately about advancing a radical pro-abortion agenda regardless of the impact on women’s health, even when it proves deadly.

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My colleagues over at Americans United For Life released a very thorough report yesterday providing a glut of information about Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the nation’s largest abortion provider. I most highly encourage anyone interested in protecting life to take the time to read through this report.

It might seem a bit daunting at 174 pages, but the actual report is really only the first 31 pages, followed by a number of wonderful appendices, including Planned Parenthood’s financial statements from 1988-present, PPFA’s service reports from this same period of time, lawsuits against the abortion giant, and more. The report also gives excellent information on Medicaid fraud and how this relates to PPFA.

For any concerned citizen who really wants to do their part in defunding the abortion giant, I encourage them to read this new report in conjunction with a few paragraphs from our own FRC brochure, “Planned Parenthood–What Every Parent, Teacher, Woman, Community Leader and Elected Official Needs to Know.”

“It is very likely that your local Planned Parenthood receives federal, state and/or local government funding. We are frequently asked by people who want to protect their children and the unborn what they can do to combat the Planned Parenthood message in their community. While every situation is unique, we would suggest the following steps.

a. Information Gathering. Do you have a local affiliate? A simple internet search will reveal any local Planned Parenthood affiliate. Find out its name and the leaders of the organization so that you are more aware of their local influence and whether they are on the local school board, hold public office, own businesses, etc. Not all Planned Parenthood affiliates perform abortions. Some offer only medical abortion (RU-486), others might also perform suction aspiration abortions, and dilation and evacuation (D & E) abortions. Some might refer patients to abortion clinics in the area. If they don’t perform abortions, find out where they refer patients to. Ask if they perform abortions every day of the week. In some instances doctors fly in from out of state and abortions are performed only once a week. The more information you can find out, the better. It isn’t difficult to obtain this information.

b. Funding. You have many options to learn more about your local affiliate’s funding. Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you can do something to protect life. A good place to start is with your state’s health department. You can look on their website to see what family planning services and groups are funded through the state and find out which perform abortions.

i. As previously indicated, we suggest looking at federal funding streams to learn more about Planned Parenthood finances, as well. One good source is the previously listed site for HHS grants. You can also look through the HHS Family Planning Database to find who is a recipient of Title X (family planning project) funding in your state or local area. http://www.opaclearinghouse.org/db_search.asp.

ii. IRS 990 tax forms are public information, and can be relatively easily accessed. Request your local affiliate’s 990 form to see how much money they have made, where it is coming from, how much they invest, etc. Another way of accessing this information is through Guidestar. http://www2.guidestar.org/

iii. Check city, county and state budgets. In situations where grant or contract recipients are not listed, we strongly encourage you to ask and keep asking until you obtain a listing of the actual names of the groups providing the services mentioned in this booklet.

c. Familiarize yourself with and befriend city council members and state legislators to identify pro-life champions. Be active in your community. Networking, being knowledgeable about the groups in your local area, and having relationships with leaders in your community is critical in this process. One citizen was actively involved in a local coalition of health organizations, of which Planned Parenthood was a part. She knew that the coalition received significant county funding, but was unable to ascertain if Planned Parenthood was receiving part of that money. After seeing the annual report and finding the recipients were not listed, she began asking more questions of her local elected officials. At this point, having a friend who was equally concerned and had a relationship with a local elected official was important and helpful. In the end, she learned that Planned Parenthood was receiving a significant amount of county funding and helped to ensure that it was ultimately defunded.

d. Legislation. Call upon your state and local elected officials to pass legislation that will protect life and force transparency for Planned Parenthood. Americans United for Life have a variety of draft legislation here.

e. Sonogram. Offering free sonograms across the street from abortion clinics has sometimes led to their eventual closing. Sonograms are a wonderful tool in promoting the truth about the dignity of the unborn. Click here for more information. The provision of sonograms constitutes the practice of medicine and should always be used under the direction and supervision of a licensed physician. For more information on the provision of sonograms click here.

Pray and peacefully protest outside of your local Planned Parenthood. In the words of former Planned Parenthood director, Abby Johnson, “Having a vigil outside an abortion clinic is vital…having people out there…praying, pricks the conscience of everyone walking in. Any time you brought a member of the clergy that was particularly effective.””

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Yesterday New Hampshire joined the growing number of states seeking to defund abortion giant Planned Parenthood.  The trend seemed to start last year when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie passed a budget which eliminated about 7.5 million dollars worth of family planning funding.

As reported by Kevin Smith, the Executive Director of Cornerstone, the Granite state’s leading family policy organization:

“This has truly been a banner day for the babies here in the Granite State… in a completely unexpected and under the radar move today, the NH Executive Council (which is like our lieutenant Governor, but it’s made up of 5 elected officials from across the state), which along with the Governor has to approve all state contracts above $2499 (yes, you read the correct) voted to REJECT the state contract for Planned Parenthood worth $1.8 million over the next two years!! This is simply amazing news!  The vote was 3-2 and it is the first time that a state contract with PP has ever been rejected!”

The story can be found here.

Here is a list (with the legislation in question as well as the state organizations that led the way) of some of the successful efforts this year, as well as three valiant efforts that did not pass.

Successful Efforts (IN, KS, NH, NC, TX, TN, WI):

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The Code of Federal Regulations is an almost sure-fire antidote to insomnia.  If boredom were a commodity, the Code would be its biggest resource.

The arcane and involved language of the Code is one reason why so few people read it.  Yet within its myriad pages are the rules that govern government itself – how laws are applied, how legislation is to be understood, and even how words used in federal regulations are to be interpreted.

Some of those words are more important than others, and those that deal with the very nature of human personhood are, perhaps, the most important of all.

In the October 1, 2009 edition of the Code, we read that “Fetus means the product of conception from implantation until delivery.”

There we have it: an unborn child is merely the “product of conception,” conception itself evidently needing no interpretation (that it takes place through the sexual union of two image-bearers of God is, apparently, irrelevant).

What are we to make of this “product?”  This collection of cells and blood and tissue stored within the veil of human flesh?  Here’s what David said of this “product,” this “fetus,” this creature:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty! (Psalm 8:3-5)

From conception onward, this “fetus” has all the same DNA as every reader of this piece.  What are the criteria for its humanness?

Is it less human because of its size?  If so, then anyone shorter than someone else is less human, as well.

Is it less human because of its development?  If so, then anyone with a physical or mental disability is less human than those more physically or mentally advanced.

Is it less human because it is dependent?  If so, then any child is less human than the parents on whose support she depends for food, clothing, shelter, etc.

And so it goes through whatever other comparisons can be summoned: Intelligence, appearance, etc.  What changes at time of “delivery,” per the Federal Registry, is not the personhood of the child but his place of residence.  He lives nine months within his mother’s womb, and the remainder of his life outside it.

Even the term “fetus,” used as a medical euphemism by those unwilling to confront the unborn child’s humanness, is telling if rendered honestly.  “Fetus” is Latin for “offspring” or “young while still in the womb.” Those who persist in its usage for the purpose of dehumanizing that to which they refer cannot avoid the potency of language itself.

Sometimes euphemisms have their place.  Saying that someone is “all foam, no root beer” is a pleasing way of conveying that the individual referenced is full of talk but has no substance or seriousness.  Yet language, however we might use it to obscure, can never fully hide that which it described.

To this point, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his landmark work Ethics, wrote,

Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life.

The language of the Code of Federal Regulations is tedious.  Its impact on American public life is profound.  But its artful obfuscation of that which is most compelling of all – what it means to be human – is unsuccessful.

A fetus is a baby is a person is a human being.  No euphemism can hide that truth – and you can take that to the bank.

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There are some things in life you just can’t avoid.  Death and taxes come to mind, of course, and the seeming inevitability of the Cubs’ ultimate collapse.

There are others.  One of them is the inescapable reality that abortion involves not a collation of tissue but the destruction of a person, a human being.

This is not just a theological assertion or philosophical rumination: We know from medical science that from conception, the unborn child has the entire DNA of a fully mature adult.  What changes at time of birth is not the humanness of the child but his or her place of residence: For nine months, the womb was home; for the remainder of a person’s life, it is the world around us.

Even the mass media cannot help itself.  In ordinary stories, the personhood of the child pops up in the simple reportage of stories of the day.  However much the pro-abortion movement has sought to shape the language of popular culture and public education, the fact that the little ones in the womb are, in fact, people, keeps intruding itself into public discourse.  For example (bold and italics are mine):

• On Monday of this week, the ABC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul noted that a “grand jury has returned an indictment charging a Buffalo man with three counts of vehicular homicide after a multi-vehicle crash in Lakeville killing two people and an unborn child.”
• On April 28, the Montgomery (AL) Advertiser had this headline: “Family grieves loss of woman, her unborn child.”
• In Bowling Green, Kentucky, the CBS affiliate told us late last month that a “Kentucky state investigator testified Tuesday that Kathy Michelle Coy, the woman accused of killing a pregnant mother and stealing her baby.”
• Yesterday, the Today Show news site reported, “Mom recounts saving unborn child from shooting spree.”
• Also yesterday, the Chicago Tribune, one of the nation’s largest papers, informed us that “Cook County Judge James Linn sentenced James Larry, 33, of Madison, Wis., to five natural life sentences on murder charges, two 30-year prison sentences for attempted murder charges and two 45-year prison sentences for charges of intentional homicide of an unborn child.”

These are only a few examples from just the past couple of weeks.

Seminary president Al Mohler has observed that while “The American conscience remains deeply divided over the question of abortion … the truth has a way of working itself into view.”

That view is clearly seen in every ultrasound, but is also known to the “law written on the heart” described by the Apostle Paul (Romans 2:15).  We can euphemize our language, speaking only of “fetus” and “choice.”  We can deflect the demands of intellectual honesty when confronted by medical fact and common reason.  But in the depth of our hearts and minds, we know better.  We know.

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An overwhelming majority of Americans oppose using taxpayer money to fund abortion.  When asked specifically if they supported or opposed the use of public funds to provide coverage for abortion in health insurance plans created by Obamacare, 72% of Americans were in opposition!  Only 23% percent supported publicly funded abortion coverage in insurance plans, and 5% did not know (Quinnipiac 2009).

In an effort to reflect the will of the people, 9 state governments have passed laws (and at least 16 more have pending legislation) prohibiting the coverage of abortion in any of the state insurance exchange programs instituted by Obamacare.

Several states have gone beyond this and restricted or proposed legislation restricting abortion coverage in all health insurance plans (public and private) except through the optional purchase of a rider.

In addition, several states which have not completely restricted abortion coverage in all insurance plans have restricted it in state-funded (read: taxpayer-funded) insurance plans.

The following map will give you a clear picture of the state of abortion coverage in insurance across the states:

=  AL (SB183, SB202 and HB 558), AR (SB113), FL (H97 and S1414), GA (SB4 and SB29), IA (HF576, HSB57, and SF38), IN (SB116), KS (HB2292, HB2377), MI (HB4143 and HB4147), (MT SB176), NE (LB22 and LB132), NJ (A3085), OH (HB79), OR (HB3600), PA (SB3), SC (H3406 and S102), TX (HB552, HB636, HB1816, HB3112, HB3419 and SB404)

= AL (SB201, SB281 and HB557), IN (SB241), KS (HB2292, HB2377), MI (HB4143 and HB4147),  MN (Only state-funded insurance: HF201, SF103), NE (LB22), OR (HB3600), SC (H3406), TX (SB404)

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In 2009, Barack Obama appointed then-Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.  This was a troubling pick for conservatives, given her support for abortion-on-demand and support from abortion giant Planned Parenthood.  As an advocate for federal funding of abortion, abortifacient drugs and embryonic stem cell research, among other things, Sec. Sebelius has justified these concerns.

Yet there is a significant bright side to Sec. Sebelius’ departure from Topeka: Former Senator Sam Brownback, a champion for life, is now Governor of Kansas.  And what a difference that has made.

Yesterday, Gov. Brownback signed legislation that “strictly limits abortions after 22 weeks based on the fact that fetuses can feel pain beginning after the 21st week of pregnancy” and another measure, “the Abortion Reporting Accuracy and Parental Rights Act,” which “requires minors who seek abortions to obtain consent from both parents and places certain prohibitions on late-term and partial birth abortions.”

Kathleen Sebelius would have fought these bills from their introduction.  Sam Brownback not only signed but celebrated them.

To those who say that Christians should withdraw from political engagement and concentrate on private acts of charity or work solely with church or ministry groups, consider Sam Brownback and his allies in the Kansas Legislature.  Were these bills the final word in the battle for life?  No.  They are part of a larger legislative mosaic that is building, gradually but steadily, a culture where the personhood of the unborn child increasingly is being recognized in law and in the American conscience.  For the children whose lives will be saved through these measures, they are nothing less than critical.

Does political engagement bring complete resolution of every problem?  No.  But political action can make a decisive, if incremental, difference in a host of areas — most importantly those involving the sanctity of life, the dignity of marriage, and the centrality of religious liberty to American public life.

Elections matter.  Just ask Sam Brownback.

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Ambulatory Surgical Centers exist in all 50 states across the US.  They are health care facilities that perform surgical procedures not requiring overnight hospitalization.  They can also be known as “outpatient” facilities, performing pain management, diagnostic, and other minor surgical procedures.  Under this definition it makes sense that an abortion facility would fall under the category of an Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) and should thus be regulated as one, however, prior to the 2011 legislative session only one state, Missouri, defined and regulated their abortion clinics as Ambulatory Surgical Centers.  This lack of regulation of a procedure that has been documented to pose health risks to women is a dangerous oversight which needs correcting.

Fortunately, we are now starting to see this course-correction happening across the states.  Since the horrific discovery of Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” in Philadelphia which facilitated the death of at least seven infants after they were born alive and two women, there has been a push in many state legislatures to further regulate abortion clinics.

In Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell recently signed legislation that causes abortion clinics to be regulated like hospitals and instructs the Department of Health to create specific regulations to that end.  The language for those regulations has yet to be finalized.

Delaware, also home to clinics where Kermit Gosnell performed his gruesome abortions, recently passed legislation through the House of Representatives (HB 47) that would further regulate abortion clinics (thought they are not mentioned by name).

In Arkansas a bill requiring clinics that perform ten or more surgical or chemical abortions a month to be licensed with the Department of Health (HB 1855) has been sent to the governor’s desk.  Other measures regulating abortion clinics are also moving through the AR legislature.

The Illinois House voted yesterday on an amendment to a bill (HB 2093) that would require child abuse to be reported by more workers in centers that provide reproductive health care than currently required.  Planned Parenthood and other organizations are opposing this bill, as well as another bill, HB 3156, that regulates abortion clinics as Ambulatory Surgical Centers.

Other state efforts to further regulate abortion clinics or define them as “Ambulatory Surgical Centers” can be seen in the second figure below and their corresponding state bill numbers can be referenced as well.

Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” is by no means the only place where deaths and other tragic abortion abuses have occurred.  Amazingly, despite the publicity following Kermit Gosnell, abortion giant Planned Parenthood continues to lobby against such regulations – just as they did against similar regulations that were designed in Pennsylvania to stop butchers like Gosnell.

Note: Information for the above map was gained from Americans United for Life.

 IA (SF 40), IL (HB 3156), KS (HB 2337 and SB 165), KY (SB47), MD (HB 23 and SB 505), OK (HB 1548), OR (SB 901), PA (HB574) and TN (HB 956 and SB 47)

AZ (SB 1390), IN (HB 1204 and SB 328), OK (HB1642) and TX (HB 2787)

DE (HB 47), IN (HB 1474), MD (HB 18, HB 19, HB 20, HB 187, and HB 746), MI (HB 150, HB 4119, HB 4120, SB 54 and SB 55), MO (HB 483), ND (HB 1297), NM (SB 225), OK (HB 1970), TN (HB 435 and SB 642) and TX (HB 2555 and HB 3446)

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Indiana is one of twelve states that define marriage as between one man and one woman in their statutes, but not in their constitution.  Many proponents of traditional marriage are hopeful that this will soon change as HJR 6, a constitutional marriage protection amendment, has now successfully passed both the House and Senate.  Before its addition to the Indiana Constitution however, it will need to pass next year’s legislative body as well, and then be approved by the voters.  Still, successful passage of this first step is definitely something to be celebrated by those desiring to protect a rightful definition of marriage, one of the most foundational institutions of society.  Further emphasizing the sacred bonds of marriage, SB 119 defines a “Covenant Marriage” and provides legal grounds for male and female couples to declare their marriage a Covenant Marriage.

There are many bills this session that regulate or restrict abortion, including several bills that address its funding. House Bill 1210 covers everything from restricting abortion based on an unborn child’s ability to feel pain, to requiring physicians to inform women of the potential risks involved in an abortion and requiring the physicians to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, to providing funding to health care providers who offer breast cancer screening, to details about fetal development materials which must be placed on the state department’s website.  It recently passed the house with a vote of 72 to 23, and is now in the Senate Committee on Health and Provider Services.

Other bills concerning abortion include:

HB 1204 - Requires an abortion doctor to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

HB 1205 – Prohibits the state from funding abortion or entities that perform abortions.

HB 1228 and SB 488 – Ensures conscience protection for health care workers.

HB 1258 – Establishes requirements for the prescription of an abortion drug.

HB1474 – Requires abortion clinics to file “terminated pregnancy forms” and specifies the content of those forms.

SB 20 – Prohibits the state from entering into a contract with or making grants to Planned Parenthood and cancels any current state funding.

SB 50 – Requires a woman to view an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion.

SB 116 – Prohibits health insurance plans established under Obamacare from providing coverage of abortion.

SB 241 – Prohibits insurance coverage of elective abortion unless it is through a separate rider.

SB 328 and SB 457 – Specifies what information should be given a woman in order for her to make an informed consent to an abortion.

SB 522 – Prohibits abortion after 20 weeks based on the unborn child’s capacity to feel pain.

And finally, SB 290 which makes it illegal to perform an abortion at any stage in the pregnancy except to save the life of the woman.

Also sitting in committee is a “Bias Crimes” bill (HB 1332) which would allow the perpetrator of a crime to receive a harsher sentence if it was determined that the victim was acted upon because of his or her “gender identity” or “sexual orientation.”  These types of bills are dangerous because they seek to legalize the punishment of thoughts and motives in addition to criminal actions.

All bills can be accessed by clicking on their number.  For a complete list of legislation FRC is tracking or to check the status of these bills click here for our legislative tracker.

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Mirroring a bill passed last year in Nebraska, the Kansas legislature recently gave final approval to a measure prohibiting abortions after 21 weeks based on an unborn child’s ability to feel pain.  This measure, HB2218, has now been sent to Governor Sam Brownback who is expected to sign it.  Passage of this legislation signals a huge step toward fully protecting and valuing unborn human life.  It also sets a precedent among states, the majority of which currently protect life at fetal “viability,” a stage which can be hard to definitively determine.  Kansas is not alone in their effort to protect unborn children who can feel pain, 12 other states currently have similar legislation (ID, OK, OR, AR, AL, GA, SC, FL, MS, MN, IA, IN).

Another pro-life bill passed by the legislature was HB2035.  It defines the criteria for those required to report cases of suspected child abuse and broadens it to include those who work or volunteer at organizations that provide pregnancy services to minors.  Also included are reporting requirements for abortion providers; a provision allowing a woman to file suit if an abortion was performed upon her illegally; and a parental consent requirement among other things.

On the topic of abortion, other bills in the legislature would prohibit taxpayer funding of abortion (HB2377), specify licensing requirements of abortion clinics (HB2337, SB36, SB45 and SB165), create health exceptions to late-term abortions (HB2007), and address abortion coverage in health insurance (HB2292 and HB2293).

In other areas, the legislature recently passed a bill requiring citizens to present valid ID before voting and in order to register to vote.  Provisions of the law do not start going into effect until January 1^st, 2012.

Currently in committees of origin are bills that establish covenant marriages and enact divorce reform (HB2254), prohibit public funding of human cloning (HB2214), and include “sexual orientation and gender identity” in state law prohibiting discrimination (SB53).  Also of note is a bill which has passed the house and is now in a senate committee that addresses the method of selecting judges (HB2101).

For more on the issue of fetal pain please read “The Science of Fetal Pain” by Jeanne Monahan.

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On February 25^th, 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its annual abortion surveillance report with their most recently compiled data and statistics — in this case, from 2007 — on abortion in the United States.

Since 1969, the CDC has reported annually on abortion-related data; typically this information is made public in November, usually during Thanksgiving week. As reported by Erick Erickson earlier this year, the CDC did not release this information as expected in November, 2010, and as late as January, 2011, there was even a rumor that the CDC would not be releasing this information at all.

However, that proved to be false as the report was eventually published on February 25, 2011. The CDC claimed that it was late because of data compilation problems.

So now that we have the report, what does it tell us about abortion and women’s health?

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Polling data affirms that more Americans now consider themselves “pro-life” than “pro-abortion” with the percentages coming in at 51% to 42% according to a Gallup poll conducted May 7th – 10th, 2009. This pro-life view was voiced at the polls last November resulting in the election of many pro-life legislatures across the states. Pledging their commitment to support the rights of the unborn child, legislators in many states have sponsored a broad range of pro-life bills. These bills range in subject matter from requiring ultrasounds, to parental consent, to stricter abortion clinic regulations, to bills that would outlaw abortions from the point at which the unborn can feel pain, but all are uniformly based on the fundamental idea that life is precious and should be protected at all stages of development.

The following maps will begin to give you a picture of the state of pro-life legislation in the states.  More maps documenting pro-life legislation will be forthcoming.

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On Wednesday, the South Dakota Senate approved HB1217, a measure designed to protect women and help ensure that a decision to have an abortion is informed and not coerced.  The bill establishes a 72-hour waiting period for an abortion, after a physician has consulted with the woman and completed a risk assessment.  Additionally, the physician will be required to provide the woman with contact information for nearby pregnancy help centers for her to schedule a consultation with them so that she can be fully informed of the risks of the abortion procedure and hear about possible alternatives.

Chris Hupke, Executive Director, South Dakota Family Policy Council says this bill is all about education. “Planned Parenthood has established themselves to be unreliable to provide the education (to women seeking an abortion).  This bill would not be necessary if Planned Parenthood was doing their job.”  Citing cases where women are forced into an abortion by the father of the child, or feel pressured while emotionally vulnerable Chris goes on to emphasize that, “Coercion is not choice.  We are trying to make sure that (abortion) is a voluntary choice.”

Governor Dennis Daugaard has appeared to indicate that he will sign the bill, stating in an article by the Rapid City Journal:

“I am pro-life, I’ve read the bill and I’m inclined to sign it, but I want to examine it along with the counsel of others to make sure there’s no unintended consequences that haven’t been identified during the debate.”

Passage of this bill by both chambers is an enormous victory for life and we congratulate the South Dakota Family Policy Council for their tireless work on this bill.  If signed into law, South Dakota will surpass the other states with the strongest safeguards ensuring that women are informed about their unplanned pregnancies.

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As Family Research Council has previously reported increasing access to contraception does not decrease the number of abortions. In fact, studies show quite the opposite.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its allies are banging the “family planning decreases the abortion rate” drum on Capitol Hill these days. However the Guttmacher Institute, previously PPFA’s own research arm, reports that over half the number women who had an abortion in 2008 –54%– were using a form of contraception during the month they got pregnant.

In the words of Kristin Powers, who blogged on this story earlier today, “what is truly astonishing about the Guttmacher statistics is that they are completely unchanged from a decade ago.”

She is correct. This is not new. Family Research Council wrote on this very topic in our Top Ten Myths of Abortion piece a few years ago,

“In the United States, a decrease in contraceptive use in recent years correlates to a decrease in the number of abortions. From 1995 to 2002, the rate of contraceptive use decreased from 64 percent to 62 percent,43 while the number of abortions fell from 1,359,400 to 1,293,000.” “Contraceptive Use,” Facts in Brief, The Alan Guttmacher Institute (March, 2005). These numbers represent use among all women age 15-44, and thus, because many women in this age group would not be sexually active, the rate of use among sexually active women would be higher.

There is more. A study recently published in Contraception conducted in Spain from 1997-2007 showed as contraceptive use increased from a rate of 49.1 to 79.9%, simultaneously the elective abortion rate increased from 5.52 to 11.49 per 1000 women.

“[R]esearch here and abroad shows that increasing access to contraception is not a solution to the problem of soaring abortion rates. In fact, it makes the problem worse. In Sweden, for example, an increase in affordable access to contraception and the presence of free contraceptive counseling have resulted in a substantial increase in the teen abortion rate. The abortion rate has climbed from 17 abortions per thousand teens in 1995 to 22.5 abortions per thousand teens in 2001.(Edgardh, K., et al., “Adolescent Sexual Health in Sweden,” Sexual Transmitted Infections 78 (2002): 352-6)

According to Professor Peter Arcidiacono of Duke University, increasing teenagers’ access to contraception “may actually increase long run pregnancy rates even though short run pregnancy rates fall. On the other hand, policies that decrease access to contraception, and hence sexual activity, are likely to lower pregnancy rates in the long run.” Peter Arcidiacono, et al., “Habit Persistence and Teen Sex: Could Increased Contraception Have Unintended Consequences for Teen Pregnancies?” (Oct. 3, 2005), Working Paper, p. 29.

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On Saturday, February 26^th, the New York Times ran two pieces on the topic of abortion and women’s health that were misleading and erroneous. “The War on Women” ignored critical facts on the recently released Planned Parenthood videos related to human trafficking. This editorial leaves one with the wrong impression that PPFA had one recent questionable instance related to the sex trafficking of minors and immediately fired this employee.  However, in truth, the problem is deeply systemic: five videos with questions related to the sex trafficking of minors featuring a number of PPFA employees and clinics across the U.S. have been released, leading to serious questions about the ethical and legal conduct of Planned Parenthood.  It is especially noteworthy that PPFA relies heavily on federal funding, having received $363 million in 2009.  This amount composes roughly one-third of PPFA’s budget.

The second piece, “The GOP’s Abandoned Babies,” by columnist Charles Blow, missed an acutely critical point in that one of the physiological consequences for women who choose to have an abortion is that their ensuing pregnancies frequently result in pre-term deliveries, leading to a higher infant mortality rate in the U.S.   Despite the rhetoric of abortion-proponents, scientific fact supports the reality that abortion is not good for women — physiologically or psychologically — much less their developing babies.

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I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who passed away this week, several times in the course of my own pro-life witness. This prolific author and teacher was the highest profile convert to the pro-life cause.

He had been a co-founder with Lawrence Lader in New York of NARAL–originally the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. He was an OB/GYN who had, by his own admission, supervised some 75,000 abortions. In his later writings, he showed how intelligently he and Lawrence Lader strategized to overturn U.S. laws for the protection of the unborn child. Lader famously said: “Abortion is central to everything in life and how we want to live it.”

Pro-lifers who underestimate the hideous strength that comes from that determination will be unprepared for the furies that are unleashed against anyone who tries to prevent abortion-on-demand from being fully funded and included within ObamaCare.

In the late 1960s, Lader focused on the Catholic Bishops, not Catholics in general. As New Yorkers, Lawrence Lader and Bernard Nathanson knew that they could not stage an anti-Catholic campaign. There were too many Catholics in New York for that. They also knew that many lay Catholics groused about the Bishops, especially those who onsidered themselves liberal, sophisticated New Yorkers.

Being pro-abortion in those days was like reading your Sunday Times over a cuppa and your bagel with. It’s what you did and who you were. Why, the Bishops had not even repudiated Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, (Of Human Life). If you weren’t going to listen to your Bishops about contraception, you were far less likely to follow their guidance about abortion. Lader brilliantly exploited those fault lines, artfully blurring all distinctions between preventing the conception of a child and killing the child in utero.

When he first broke with Lader, NARAL, and the pro-abortion ranks in 1972, Bernard Nathanson took pains to emphasize that his newfound opposition to abortion was based on his medical and scientific discoveries alone. He continued to describe himself as a “Jewish atheist.” He did not want the secular media to dismiss him as a religious fanatic. It’s interesting to note that for all his documented anti-Catholicism, the mainstream media never dismissed Lawrence Lader as an anti-religious fanatic.

In his 1979 book, Aborting America, Dr. Nathanson wrote of how seeing the unborn child on ultra-sound had changed his mind about abortion. The scientific reality was–for this brilliant thinker and writer–inescapable.

I first met Dr. Nathanson in the early 1980s when he addressed a Lutherans for Life national convention. He brought his beautiful wife, Christine, with him and she memorably related how she welled up with tears upon hearing us sing “Beautiful Savior,” a hymn she recalled from the Lutheran churches of her childhood. Still, Dr. Nathanson took pains to emphasize his reasons for now opposing the “satanic world of abortion” were non-religious.

In Kansas City in 1984, I again encountered Dr. Nathanson. This time, he was to present his compelling film, The Silent Scream. The convention of the National Right to Life Committee eagerly awaited this video. So many convention goers crowded into the room for the screening that organizers had to move the showing to a larger room. Dr. Nathanson asked me to help set up the TV monitor. We had to put the heavy television on stage on two chairs so that people in the back of the hall could see the grainy ultra-sound footage.

I told Dr. Nathanson I would have to stay up there to hold the monitor or it might pitch forward into the crowd of watchers below. “My God, Bob, I hope not!” He said it with such emphasis that I thought then he was not going to be able to maintain his “Jewish atheist” shtick much longer.

That film was later described by Planned Parenthood, the outfit that kills as many as 350,000 unborn children yearly, as “the most powerful thing the right to life movement has put out.” I thought, I hoped, that if we could only get everyone in America to watch this overwhelming film, we could put an end to abortion. I still believe that.

Dr. Nathanson later wrote, in his 1996 book The Hand of God, about the power that ultra-sound images have over us:

For the first time, we could really see the human fetus, measure it, watch it, and indeed bond with it and love it. I began to do that.

It was in 1996 that I saw Dr. Nathanson for the last time. He spoke to a Capitol Hill meeting of pro-lifers. He was to speak to us about his recent conversion to Catholicism.

We were all interested to hear what he had to say, but before he could affirm his new faith, he wanted to confess to us his sins.

He described how he had performed an abortion on his girlfriend, killing his own child. He admitted driving the children of one of his wives into mental institutions. It was a heart-wrenching confession, painful to hear. Then, he recited the Apostles’ Creed and all present wept.

Except, perhaps, Professor Hadley Arkes. Hadley was viewing all this with evident emotion, but with a certain distance. Jim Jatras, a respected Hill staffer and noted Greek Orthodox believer, with a flowing beard, innocently asked Hadley if he, too, had not converted to Catholicism. Arching a bushy eyebrow, Hadley gave a shrug and said: “Not yet.”

Dr. Nathanson now goes to his Beautiful Savior, asking for His mercy. The power of love is what brought Bernard Nathanson around. It may yet bring around those professional killers, Warren Hern and LeRoy Carhart. That, and no violence on our part, is our best hope.

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