Life Advocacy Briefing

For the week of September 17, 2007

Candidates to Be Quizzed by ‘Values’ Leaders / Another Liberal in the House?
/ Calls Needed on Defense Bill, Too / Fateful Appointment / Standing Up for Shoddy /
Tiller Loses Bid to Block Probe / More Bad News for Tiller / Megabortuary On Hold? / Just in Case 

Candidates to Be Quizzed by ‘Values’ Leaders

TONIGHT, MONDAY, IS THE NIGHT OF THE ‘VALUES VOTER’ DEBATE in which participating GOP Presidential candidates will respond to questions from key pro-life/family leaders. The three-hour forum, being staged in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, will be telecast live at 7:30 p.m. EDT on the satellite Sky Angel One network and on Dish satellite network channel 262. Those with Internet access will be able to view the event by live “streaming” at www.valuesvoterdebate.com or at www.afa.net.

 

Another Liberal in the House?

THE U.S. SENATE WILL TAKE UP legislation this week to grant full voting rights in the US House of Representatives to the delegate elected by the District of Columbia, in defiance of the explicit terms of the Constitution.

Such legislation would guarantee one more leftish, pro-spending vote in the US House, one which would almost certainly be a social liberal. The current delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, is an abortion-backing Democrat, fitting the traditional mold of DC “representation.”

Because of the abortion-policy implications of this House-packing exercise, we expect to publish the Senate voting record – and that of the House, should the DC Voting Rights Bill arise there – when the action is taken and to include this vote in our annual Senate Voting Record Index this autumn.

Above all, we urge pro-life citizens and officials to weigh in on this question, to call Senators and urge that they “please vote ‘no’ on the DC Voting Rights Bill.” Senators may be reached via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121.

 

Calls Needed on Defense Bill, Too

THE DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL COULD COME BEFORE THE SENATE this week as well. Those calling Senators should include in their calls a request that Senators vote to keep abortion out of our military facilities; abortion lobby amendments to force overseas US military facilities to commit abortions are typical at this time of year and often arise on the Defense Authorization or Defense Appropriation measures.

 

Fateful Appointment

A 40-YEAR-OLD WOMAN FILED SUIT Aug. 31 against Planned Parenthood of Lincoln, Nebraska, in whose shop, she complains, reports LifeSiteNews.com, “she lost 80% of her total blood volume and required an emergency hysterectomy to save her life.”

The lawsuit complaint states she was eight weeks along in pregnancy when she put herself in Mr. Severson’s hands. “During the suction abortion,” reports LifeSite, “she felt a sharp, excruciating pain and asked abortionist Severson to stop. Three employees then held the woman down,” reports LifeSite, “while he completed the suction process in spite of her pleas.”

“‘Our client feels completely violated,’” said her attorney Jefferson Downing in a statement quoted by Nathan Burchfiel for Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com). “‘Her right to choose to have the procedure stopped was ignored,’” he said, “‘and she was also robbed of her right to choose to have children in the future as well.’”

The LifeSite story makes clear she was nearly robbed of her very life, citing the lawsuit complaint as source to relate how she passed out while in intense pain and bleeding in the recovery room, where she suffered the first of three seizures. “The woman was transported by ambulance to the local hospital,” reports LifeSite, “where doctors treated her for ‘catastrophic perforation’ of the uterus, which,” reports LifeSite, “would have resulted in her death if treatment had been delayed any longer.”

Attorney Downing, quoted by CNSNews.com, “said the case should illustrate ‘the dangers of abortion – that it’s not just a baby’s life that’s at stake. Our client,’” he said, “‘doesn’t want this horror to happen to anyone else. She believes women have the right to know that they could be risking their lives.’”

“‘People need to be aware,’” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman, quoted by LifeSite, “‘that when they walk into a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, they may not walk out.’”

 

Standing Up for Shoddy

PLANNED PARENTHOOD & A MISSOURI ABORTIONIST ARE CLAIMING the state’s new abortion clinic regulation law imposes standards which would require renovations “too costly” to comply, reports Operation Rescue in an OR news release relating proceedings in a federal lawsuit seeking to invalidate the law and its protections.

Abortionist Allen Palmer, co-plaintiff in the suit with PP of Kansas & Mid-Missouri, “brought in an architect,” reports OR, “who told the court that it would take $1.1 million to bring [his] abortion facility up to the new codes. … ‘If Palmer’s mill is that big of a dump,’” said OR president Troy Newman in the release, “‘that it would require that much money to meet minimum safety standards, he shouldn’t be operating.

“‘These abortionists want to maintain unsafe conditions in order to save money,’ said [Mr.] Newman” in the release. “‘That really tells you where their priorities are, and it is not with the health and safety of women. Abortionists want special treatment and exemption,’” he said, “‘from the same laws that every other medical professional must follow. It is because they know if they have to be accountable,’” he noted, “‘they would not be able to continue their shady practices or maintain their profit margins.’”

 

Tiller Loses Bid to Block Probe

NOTORIOUS ABORTIONIST GEORGE TILLER FAILED last week in a federal lawsuit to block the convening of a grand jury to investigate whether he is violating state law limiting late-term abortions. Federal Judge J. Thomas Marten refused to squelch the effort of Kansas citizens to call the grand jury under a unique state law empowering citizens to initiate grand jury probes by petition.

The Sedgwick County petition bore the signatures of 7,857 citizens, reports Operation Rescue in a news release, noting the subscribers totaled “three times the required number.” The citizens seek to reinstate charges dismissed last December on the motion of the county’s district attorney, Nola Foulston. “The petition,” reports OR, “specifically asks that [Ms.] Foulston and Attorney General Paul Morrison, a beneficiary of an estimated $1 million Tiller’s campaign help, not be involved in the requested grand jury investigation.”

The petition claims Mr. Tiller is in violation of Kansas’s late-term abortion law, which prescribes circumstances under which post-viable babies may be killed in the state.

 

More Bad News for Tiller

KANSAS LAWMAKERS REVIEWING THEIR LATE-TERM ABORTION LAW heard explosive testimony early this month from a Topeka woman who underwent a late-term abortion in 2003 at George Tiller’s Wichita mill. Though she was in her 24th week of pregnancy, she testified, reports KMBC-TV’s TheKansasCityChannel.com, “that her medical records [at the Tiller shop] indicate the fetus couldn’t survive outside the womb.” She and her attorney, she said, “believe the fetus was viable.

“State law restricts abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy,” reports KMBC. “They can be performed if a fetus is not viable or, if it is, when two independent doctors say a woman risks death or major, permanent damage to her health if the pregnancy continues.” No such excuse was pertinent in the Topeka woman’s case.

The woman, who was 18 at the time, testified that “her parents forced her to have the abortion,” reports KMBC, “and that no one at the clinic gave her a chance to stop it.” She told the committee she felt “‘exploited by Dr. Tiller and his office for the $2,500 it cost,’” reports KMBC. “Later, during a break,” reports the television station, “she said, ‘Basically, they just shove you in, and you’re so frozen and so numb that it’s done.’”

The woman told the committee “she had the abortion,” according to the KMBC report, “even though she told clinic staff she thought it was ‘murder,’ adding, ‘There was no time to say, “Hey, I don’t want to do this.”’”

According to an Operation Rescue news release which reports her testimony in greater detail than the television station’s Internet report, she told the committee “she signed no consent forms prior to the beginning of the abortion [and] was asked no medical information prior to the beginning of her abortion.” She further testified, reports OR, that “she received no follow-up contact from [Mr.] Tiller’s clinic to ensure that she received proper after-care, which,” she said, “she did not.”

After the young woman finished telling her story to the legislative panel, opines journalist Jack Cashill, whose column in WorldNetDaily.com (WND) relates the testimony in heart-wrenching detail too lengthy for our report here, “Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller had to wonder how much more money he would have to pump into Kansas politics to keep his late-term empire afloat.” (The witness’s full testimony is available on audio via the OR Internet website at operationrescue.org.)

Citing also the video-taped presentation of Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Paul McHugh, who had reviewed records from the Tiller shop obtained in a previous investigation, Mr. Cashill concludes, “From existing evidence, it seems likely that nearly all of Tiller’s late-term abortions have been performed as a matter of coercion or convenience in full indifference to Kansas law.” He writes that even the Kansas City Star newspaper, a Tiller apologist of long-standing, “is beginning to distance itself from the heretofore white-hatted Tiller.”

 

Megabortuary On Hold?

PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAS GONE INTO FEDERAL COURT in Chicago seeking to force the suburban City of Aurora to issue a final occupancy permit for its new megabortuary.

The outfit was planning to open its doors to the 22,000-square-foot “fortress” tomorrow, Sept. 18, but, writes Chicago Tribune staff reporter Gerry Smith citing Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner as source, the opening “likely will be delayed as officials investigate whether the group’s occupancy permit was proper.”

The city has hired an outside attorney to review the paperwork and “the legality of the permit process,” reports the Tribune. Kristen Zambo, staff writer for the Aurora Beacon-News, reports the lawyer is charged specifically with “determining whether the developer lied to city staff and aldermen about the medical office complex.

The mayor indicated in the Tribune story that “the investigation likely would not be completed in time. ‘We’re not going to allow operations to begin until we’ve accomplished the investigation,’ [Mayor] Weisner said” in the Tribune story.

The abortuary has been the focus of intense controversy in the west suburban city since a construction worker, wondering why a medical office would need bulletproof glass and ubiquitous security cameras, came forward with concern the “clinic” might actually be an abortuary. Planned Parenthood had hidden behind a front name in constructing the massive building and in securing city permits for the project.

“City officials said all they knew about the property,” reports the Tribune, “was that it was zoned for a medical building called Gemini Health Center. They have said,” reports the Tribune, “that it is not unusual for a development company to receive permits without the city knowing the tenants.” But the permit application submitted in March did request disclosure of tenants’ identity, and, though “Gemini” knew it was acting on behalf of Planned Parenthood, the front claimed the tenants were “unknown.”

Aurora citizens, organized under “Families Against Planned Parenthood,” began holding vigils and protests on the sidewalks in front of the property, and the last two of the city council’s regular meetings have been packed with citizens appealing for hours to the council to block the opening of the facility.

A 40-day prayer vigil at the site is slated to wrap up tonight, and a “Jericho March” around the mile-plus perimeter has taken place repeatedly over the past seven days and was scheduled to conclude this past Saturday with a special appearance by the Rev. Johnny Hunter, a nationally known African-American pro-life leader and founder of Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN).

Fox News aired an expose on PP’s sneak attack on the Chicago suburb on “Hannity’s America” last Sunday night and used the story as an opportunity also to report the outfit’s $305 million in tax money, its $60 million profit and its “deceit” in abetting sexual abuse of adolescent girls, actually airing audio from two of the investigatory telephone interviews produced some years ago by Life Dynamics, in which PP “counselors” are heard advising a young woman who claimed to be 14 years old not to disclose the identity or age of her supposedly 22-year-old boyfriend, so that PP would not have to report the girl’s statutory rape to authorities. As of this writing, the full “Hannity’s America” segment could be viewed via the OR Internet website at operationrescue.org.

 

Just in Case

AN AURORA CITY COUNCILMAN IS DRAFTING AN ORDINANCE requiring “those 18 and younger,” writes Amy Boerema for the Daily Herald, “to notify their parents before receiving medical care.”

Ald. Rick Lawrence’s proposal is one response to the imminent opening of a Planned Parenthood megabortuary in the western Chicago suburb, though he says he is not “targeting” the controversial business. He hopes to have the ordinance in committee within two weeks, the Daily Herald reports.

“As a father of two daughters,” writes Ms. Boerema, “he said he’s ‘astounded’ they could decide to have a potentially life-threatening surgery without their parents’ knowledge.”

Enforcement of Illinois’s 1995 Parental Notice of Abortion Act is being blocked by a federal judge. “Because Aurora is a home-rule city,” writes Ms. Boerema, “officials can create their own laws.” The American Civil Liberties Union has already hinted at a likely challenge to the city’s authority. An ACLU spokesman, reports the Daily Herald, “said, ‘We’re going to be watching this activity very closely over the next few months.’”

 

 

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