Court overturns Blagojevich’s order forcing pharmacies to sell emergency contraceptives
I’ve been tracking this case with antipathy for 6 years.
On April 1, 2005, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich stood flanked by NARAL President Nancy Keenan (in above photo, left), then-President of Planned Parenthood Karen Pearl (partially seen behind his shoulder), and then-President of Chicago Planned Parenthood Steve Trombley (far right), among other local and national pro-abort leaders, to announce he was making Illinois the 1st state to force pharmacies and pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives “without delay,” even if in violation of their consciences.
Emergency contraceptives can cause abortions, although the other side sure tries to obscure that fact. (Plan B is the brand name of one emergency contraceptive.) Click to enlarge)…
Finally, yesterday Sangamon Co. Circuit Court Judge John Belz struck down Blagojevich’s executive fiat on 3 points, according to the Mirror of Justice blog, “as a violation of the IL Healthcare Right of Conscience Act, the IL Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
Even with 2 laws and 1 constitutional amendment stacked against Blagojevich’s rule, and despite Belz’s additional ruling that…
…no evidence of a single person who ever was unable to obtain emergency contraception because of a religious objection. … Nor did the government provide any evidence that anyone was having difficulties finding willing sellers of over-the-counter Plan B, either at pharmacies or over the Internet….
… still, Democrat pro-abort IL Attorney General Lisa Madigan plans to spend money our bankrupted state does not have to appeal the ruling.
Nevertheless, I hope Mirror of Justice’s ponderance is true: “It will be interesting to see if this ruling stirs things up on the litigation front in other states.” I hope pro-lifers around the country can use this court decision to overturn laws passed subsequently that force pharmacies and pharmacists in other states to defy their consciences to give pregnant mothers a pill to prospectively abort their children.
And if it is determined this court decision applies to all IL pharmacists and not just the 2 who filed the original lawsuit, I sure hope those 4 Walgreens pharmacists fired after Blagojevich signed the rule sue.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Walgreen’s is a great store. It’s a shame they are on the wrong side of this issue.
Instead of appealing this ruling, perhaps Madigan could take-up the issue of enforcing parental notification laws in IL. (How long have we been waiting? Ten to fifteen years?)
Janet,
Yeah, I get really flabbergasted over the casual attitude toward parental consent. Granted, some parents are not very good parents, but what about the ones who ARE? The ones who really love and care for their kids, but don’t want them having abortions or being on artificial birth control (whether for health, personal, or religious reasons). They get no say or PP knows ways around it. It’s very frightening as a parent to face that potentially mine or my family or friends’ kids could go ahead and do all that without their parents ever knowing anything. It would’ve broken my mother’s heart if any of us had done that; she always made it clear we could talk to her about sexual matters and ask any questions we needed to at our pace–she didn’t force us to ask questions, but she put it on the table that we could.
You people in Illinois vote for some freaks, don’t you?
Second to California, that is.
Plan B works to prevent implantation. If a woman is pregnant, it doesn’t cause an abortion. But what’s next – if a pharmacist doesn’t approve of smoking, should they refuse to sell cigarettes? But hey, if a woman gets pregnant cuz the pharmacist is a religious zealot, she can still get an abortion in Ill.
“Plan B works to prevent implantation. If a woman is pregnant, it doesn’t cause an abortion.”
Let’s cut to the heart of the matter here. If the zygote (more properly, the blastocyst is the name of the stage of human life that is attempting to implant) is a human being with intrinsic value and moral worth and if Plan B can be shown to much of the time be the cause of the blastocyst’s failure to implant, then we have a real moral problem with Plan B because it directly causes the death of a human being. I don’t care how we define pregnancy. I don’t care how we define abortion. If Plan B does what I assumed above (and I’m not sure if it really does this; that is up to science, and I’m just not well-read enough), then it is an evil to be avoided.
CC, life begins at CONCEPTION not implantation. You’ve been here long enough to know that. Stop playing stupid (unless you really are, in that case, you have my apologies!)
If cigarette smoking caused someone else to immediately die then I would have a problem selling cigarettes. But when a man or woman buys cigarettes children do not drop dead. So thats not really a good analogy imo. See, I really AM pro-choice when it comes to a person’s OWN body. If you want to smoke… well I think you’re stupid but its YOUR BODY. I am NOT pro-choice when your choice destroys OTHER PEOPLE’S BODIES.
“CC, life begins at CONCEPTION not implantation”
So when a woman has a heavy period which includes “persons” not implanted, she could be flushing little lives down the toilet? And BTW, the law does not recognize that “personhood” begins with conception and the effort to define it as such was defeated in Colorado by people who don’t believe it. You folks really should be protesting outside in-vitro labs because they’re “murdering” “babies” in there – or at least holding them hostage!
I am NOT pro-choice when your choice destroys OTHER PEOPLE’S BODIES.
So, hypothetically speaking, you have a right to determine what I do with what’s inside my body? In the name of “life,” you could forbid me to have my ovaries and uterus removed? You could ban vasectomies because the process impairs the creation of life? Just asking…
CC,
“And BTW, the law does not recognize that “personhood” begins with conception and the effort to define it as such was defeated in Colorado by people who don’t believe it.”
I’m curious why you would mention this. Do you think this what our position is? That the law defines a person from conception, and we’ve just been interpreting the law poorly all these years? What do you think our position is?
Yes, the law does not recognize that embryo as a person. We are trying to argue that it should. Yes, it lost in Colorado and will continue to lose again for quite some time. I’m not really sure how those facts address the arguments that we give for the personhood of the unborn. Or is the argument that the law determines what is right and wrong? I’m genuinely confused as to what you would like to convince us of. What is the thesis you are here to put forward to try and convince people of that you think we do not know and how does your above quote support that thesis?
Any pharmacist who is unwilling to give contraceptives to women has absolutely no business being a pharmacist. These arrogant,hy[ocritical and self-righteous people should seek employment in some other field.
Can you imagine an orthodox Jew who was a waiter in a non-kosher restaurant and refused to serve pork dishes to the customers ? That individual shouldn’t be working in that restaurant.And the notion that a pill can “cause” an abortion is just plain ludicrous.You can’t “abort” something which is microscopic. It’s insanity to say that any pill can cause an abortion. An abortion is the surgical removal of a partially formed and VISIBLE fetus.I can understand people being opposed to this kind of surgical procedure, but calling pills “abortifacients” is beyond ludicrous.
1. When a woman has her period and sheds unfertilized eggs, no life is involved. If a woman has an early miscarriage and gets her period, then yes, the embryo is flushed down the toilet.
2. Your ovaries and uterus are not a genetically distinct human being. They are indeed your body. You “own them” to some extent, though even there you are limited since most doctors cannot and will not just remove the organs merely b/c a patient wants them to. So even there, you don’t quite have perfect freedom to do as you like with your body. But the embryo is not your body, but rather a separate human entity going through the normal beginning stages of growth that every human being goes through. In the first case there is one body, in the second, there are two.
“You can’t “abort” something which is microscopic…An abortion is the surgical removal of a partially formed and VISIBLE fetus.”
If it’s microscopic, then it’s invisible?
Robert, please see what I wrote above about how the claim is that it causes the death of a blastocyst which is a human being with dignity and moral worth. I don’t care for the sake of this argument about the semantics of what abortion and pregnancy is. We entertain the semantics of that pro-choice game too much. The question is either “is the unborn a human with dignity and moral worth (person)?” or “does Plan B actually have this effect often enough to warrant concern?” But all these little red herrings about size and such doesn’t help anyone on either side.
@Robert
Thankfully the number of pharmacists who dabble in priesthood is a minority. Regardless of their numbers, they should be doing more of their job, which is accurately filling prescriptions, and less of theirs hobbies, which seem to include family doctor on top of priest.
Plan B works to prevent implantation. If a woman is pregnant, it doesn’t cause an abortion.
I love how abortion defenders use this line as if 1] they don’t understand that the pro-life position (and the scientific one) is that life begins at conception and 2] they think that the “pregnancy begins at implantation” somehow argues away the science. Pregnancy may begin at implantation, but human life does not. This is a smoke screen, and not a very good one.
So when a woman has a heavy period which includes “persons” not implanted, she could be flushing little lives down the toilet?
Conception. Not before (unfertilized eggs discarded during periods), not after (implantation, viability, when the magical life fairies touch your nose because you have come into contact with the mystical substance known as air, whatever other position abortion supporters have moved the goalposts to this week…). Conception. It’s only one word, and one with a well known definition. This is not complicated.
“Pregnancy may begin at implantation, but human life does not. This is a smoke screen, and not a very good one.”
BAM. Way to cut through all the snares, Alice. It is a moot point when we define pregnancy to begin. Maybe there are really good biochemical reasons why we shouldn’t consider a woman pregnant until implantation. Who cares? The point is not what is the best way to define pregnancy, but what does Plan B do to the environment that a blastocyst needs in order to survive?
A miscarriage is not a period, period. Even if a woman miscarries two weeks after conception, which might correspond with when she gets her period, it’s not a period.
Certain abortion fans like to tell us how edjamacated they are, then oopsie, suddenly the brain drops out when it comes to biology! Lol! It reminds me of “selective hearing loss.” I guess we can call it “selective intelligence.” LOL!!
As soon as conception occurs, the new individual begins to GROW, which is scientific proof of life, along with respiration, using nutrition, and all that other good stuff. I don’t care when “personhood” begins, because frankly some adults who can use a keyboard are not even qualified to self-identify as “persons.” But I do know when new life begins: conception. Do whatever you want with your ovaries and eggs, but once conception occurs, THAT new body belongs to someone else.
@Robert: “Can you imagine an orthodox Jew who was a waiter in a non-kosher restaurant and refused to serve pork dishes to the customers ? That individual shouldn’t be working in that restaurant.”
Wrong analogy. A closer scenario would be requiring every restaurant to serve pork even if the owner wanted it to be kosher and saying that based on that, no Orthodox Jew should be permitted to work in food service industry unless willing to serve pork, even if the Jewish individual was willing to serve all non pork dishes and the owner had agreed to the arrangement. That’s the scenario you’ve suggested here for pharmacists.
“You can’t “abort” something which is microscopic. It’s insanity to say that any pill can cause an abortion. An abortion is the surgical removal of a partially formed and VISIBLE fetus”
Why do abortion clinics offer Mifepristone under their “abortion” options?
ok Robert -news flash here….
as you said: It’s insanity to say that any pill can cause an abortion. An abortion is the surgical removal of a partially formed and VISIBLE fetus.I can understand people being opposed to this kind of surgical procedure, but calling pills “abortifacients” is beyond ludicrous.
Planned parenthood and other abortion providers provide non-surgical abortions all the time – it;s called RU-486, a two drug regimen that first kills the unborn child do to poor progesterone uptake, making the placenta fail. The second drug starts the contractions, forcing the placenta away from the uterine wall, and within 10-14 days the woman has an abortion and the baby and everything else leaves her body.
Second, a baby when this is done, is usually between 6 and 9 weeks of gestation – small and yet fully visible to an ultrasound – with a beating heart, fingers, toes, head, body, spine, eyes… so more than a blob of tissue of course – a human with a beating heart, movement, limbs and of course, life.
CT said it right… Just thought you should know.
CC:
“Plan B works to prevent implantation. If a woman is pregnant, it doesn’t cause an abortion.”
It’s hard to take you seriously when you make such statements. According to the field of embryology, which is not yet politically driven, fertilization marks the beginning of a new human organism, and hence a new pregnancy. This event occurs in the fallopian tubes.
Preventing implantation effects the death of the embryo. It is akin to unplugging a respirator and pulling out a feeding tube, as implantation is the necessary event to facilitate gas exchange and nutrient acquisition. This is regardless of personhood status, which historically has been the device used by history’s monsters to strip other human organisms of their legal protections.
You would have been a hoot in the antebellum and segregationist south, CC.
And to think that you took exception on another thread to a commenter suggesting that you are the spokesperson for the anti-christ.
“You can’t “abort” something which is microscopic. It’s insanity to say that any pill can cause an abortion. An abortion is the surgical removal of a partially formed and VISIBLE fetus.”
Is that your professional medical or scientific opinion, Dr. Berger? Perhaps you could share with us your source material. Robert, you need to own up to what you have done. It’s called repenting. You are spinning mad ideations in an increasingly desperate and nonsensical fashion. It’s really sad to see.
Once a pregnancy commences, it either completes itself successfully, or is aborted through a spontaneous or induced fashion. It matters not the size of the organism. As for little pills not causing abortions, this is a prime example of the increasing disconnect with reality. Read this:
http://gerardnadal.com/2010/05/31/ellaone-more-lethal-than-plan-b-on-the-way-to-us/
Come on Robert. God is waiting with infinite love, forgiveness, and mercy.
“You would have been a hoot in the antebellum and segregationist south, CC.”
So says the man who wants to put anti-sodomy laws back on the book…what a beacon of tolerance. Maybe we should just install cameras in every American bedroom?
“Maybe we should just install cameras in every American bedroom?”
Oh Megan, you little voyeur…
“Wrong analogy. A closer scenario would be requiring every restaurant to serve pork even if the owner wanted it to be kosher and saying that based on that, no Orthodox Jew should be permitted to work in food service industry unless willing to serve pork, even if the Jewish individual was willing to serve all non pork dishes and the owner had agreed to the arrangement. That’s the scenario you’ve suggested here for pharmacists.”
Quoted for truth. I would hope that most medical professionals are interested in saving lives, not ending them. It does not follow that a doctor who seeks to help heal people should also want to perform abortions. Similarly it does not follow that a pharmacist should want to participate in chemical abortions.
That said, isn’t it interesting that the original Hippocratic Oath forbade doctors from performing abortions, and that the “modern” version of the Oath omits that part?
I’ve asked this before, but maybe those of you with more medical knowledge can tell: If a woman has not conceived when she takes one of the abortion pills,
vs. if a woman has conceived when she takes one of the abortion pills,
Isn’t the detrimental effect on the woman the same? The pills are NOT safer if the woman is pregnant, the pills are NOT safer if a woman is not pregnant. Right? So women who have not conceived, are they indeed taking a needlessly harmful drug that can have very ill effects on her body?
A woman who is not pregnant, will she also experience the same cramping, sickness, and bleeding as a woman who is pregnant?
Ninek,
The answer to your question is yes and no. The effects can be worse if a woman is pregnant, but depending on which medication is under question, the effects can be more or less severe. The scandal of medications such as Ella is that they have not undergone most mandatory safety testing. So, essentially, the women taking these medicines are participating in one of the largest unregulated, unsupervised, unethical medical trials in human history.
But then again you’re only women, and there’s lots of money to be made at your expense. (See also Planned Parenthood). Hillary Clinton and the feminist elite have sold women out so big that the cost is incalculable.
But then again you’re only women, and there’s lots of money to be made at your expense.
The fem elites have certainly sold out my gender but their long-term goal is to get rid of all you fellas.
Never fear, Our Great Prolife Lady remembers how much she loved her Son (starting at His conception). She and her Son are helping us win this battle against satan.
Robert – I have lost two children to miscarriage, one at 12 weeks (baby was measuring 8 weeks, as determined by ultrasound) and one at 5 weeks, 6 days. I can assure you that both losses were equally painful, despite the fact that one baby was “visible” and was removed from my body via D&C, and one baby was not “visible” and his/her body exited my body via natural miscarriage.
It is incredibly hurtful and insulting when you insist that the child I lost at 5w6d was worthless just because s/he was not “visible.”
So, women like cc are fighting for the “opportunity” to make each other sick for 3 weeks at a time whether they “need” it or not. ‘Kay… Only our wallets have come a long way, baby.
Praxedes, as the saying goes, I read the book. We win.
carder says:
You people in Illinois vote for some freaks, don’t you?
Second to California, that is.
——————————————————————————————-
When I vote, my candidates NEVER get into office. We have conservatives in most of Illinois (farmland/rural areas which comprise most of the state). But because of the millions of Democrats in Chicago, that is why we elect so many freaks.
The only reason I don’t give up on voting is because it is my right as a U.S. citizen and, more importantly, God wants me to participate in the process.
CT, your response to Robert Berger, “A closer scenario would be requiring every restaurant to serve pork even if the owner wanted it to be kosher,” is extremely well stated!
Joana,I’m sorrry you took offense at what I said in my post. I’m very sorry about your miscarriages,and don’t think I lack sympathy for women who suffer them.And I didn’t say that the potential life your were carrying was”worthless”.
All I meant to say was that it’s ludicrous to call a pill which causes a woman to lose a tiny handful of cells which cannot be seen without a microscope an abortion.
Robert,
“All I meant to say was that it’s ludicrous to call a pill which causes a woman to lose a tiny handful of cells which cannot be seen without a microscope an abortion.”
Suppose we had evolved differently so that we had better eyesight and were able to see the “handful of cells” (which would probably number in the 10s of thousands if it was actually a handful) with the naked eye. Would it not be an abortion then?
Or suppose there is someone who has such strange eyesight that he is able to to see the “handful of cells” (actually my hand itself is just a handful of cells and I can see that) without a microscope. Would it not be an abortion for him but it would be an abortion for someone who couldn’t see it?
In other words, is the ontological reality of abortion a function of one’s ability to see something? If so, how? And if not, why did you bring up the fact that the “handful of cells” cannot be seen?
Robert:
“All I meant to say was that it’s ludicrous to call a pill which causes a woman to lose a tiny handful of cells which cannot be seen without a microscope an abortion.”
Thank you for this illuminating comment. Why do you suppose it is that human atrocities are often not judged to be such so long as they are kept out of sight, unseen by the world? I suppose this is why concentration camps are usually built in remote wooded or jungle areas, and Planned Parenthood howls in rage at Live Action’s video-taped stings.
You can’t be an ostrich with your head in the sand. Lack of visibility does not mean the absence of evil being perpetrated. The field of embryology has pronounced the single-celled zygote a new human organism, whole and complete in form and function for its stage in the continuum of the human developmental cycle.
Size really doesn’t matter.
Leave it to a chauvinist like Berger to be obsessed with size! lol.
Robert Berger,
Looks like you can’t win for losing. Even your comment clarifying your earlier comment is still an insult because it’s an insult to life.
We’re all made up of clumps of cells, as Dr. Gerard points out. It doesn’t matter if the hand is particularly visible with the naked eye (simply because it’s big enough) it doesn’t change the fact that we’re all walking, talking, thinking clumps of cells and tissues. That’s where the similarities between pre-born and born begin. I don’t know why people on your side have such a problem with developing human beings just because they don’t look like born human beings.
As far as I know, every human being continues to evolve even after they’re born. They grow, develop and learn. Even adults. (Shoot I keep learning things, which is a continued development of my thought process).
I don’t get why your side takes such exception with this. It would seem that that the abilities of the human mind would be something your side would treasure. Am I wrong?
The human mind is such a terrible thing to waste and abortion is wasting those minds by never giving them the opportunity to be what they will be.
You anti-choicers never cease to amaze me.You wail endlessly about the “slaughter of the unborn in the womb,” ,uyet it’s perfectly okay with you if those “unborn” are born into abject poverty, malnutrition,lack of education and career opportunities,as well as abuse and neglect
Which is what so many children are doomed to because of poverty. This is compassion? Where is your concern for those who HAVE been born and who live such miserable lives? This is why abortion happens.Poor women do not want to be forced to give birth to children who are doomed to miserable lives.It’s mental torture to them to see their children suffer this way.
And please don’t give me all that B.S. about adoption,because it’s absolutely impossible for all children born to poor mothers to be adopted,or even the majority. Unless America does something to greatly reduce poverty, we can never reduce,let alone eliminate abortion.
All your claims about Planned Parenthood being a “racist” organization out to commit “genicide” against blacks in America, and the supposed existence of some sinister racist plot to wipe out blacks through abortion etc are ludicrous.. Abortion would still be very common in America even if Margaret Sanger had never existed,or been anti-choice. To blame Margaret Sanger for abortion in America is beyond ludicrous.
To call abortion a “holocaust” is an insult to all the Jews who died in the Nazi holocaust and their families and descendants. You anti-choicers don’t want the governement to fund abortions for poor women,but you also don’t want it to give them the subsidies which would prevent them from having abortions in the first place.
I’m extremely worried about a right-wing President being elected next year and replacing Obama. He or she will no doubt greatly decrease government help for the poor,and poor pregnant women,which will only INCREASE the number of abortions. greatly.Don’t you anti-choicers have the sense to realize this?
Robert,
There was a son of a runaway slave who was born into the sort of abject poverty of which you speak. The young man joined the US Navy during the Civil War and was honorably discharged in 1865, after the war’s conclusion.
This young man, who knew the hatred and hardship that lead people such as yourself to call for their womb-lynching, went on to make something of himself through hard work and diligence.
When Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb, it was at best an impractical novelty, as he had no means of mass producing the filaments. The young man, Lewis Howard Latimer invented a process for mass production of carbon filaments, and in so doing brought light to the world. He went on to be the only African American inventor who was a full member of Edison’s society of inventors.
Juxtapose Latimer with yourself. You start from a position of relative wealth and education, of social standing among the world’s people. All you see about you is inferiority and in fear and frustration, in intellectual and moral bankruptcy you see death as the only solution.
Latimer started with nothing, was hated by the likes of you, had none of your education or social standing and the opportunities they bring, yet he brought light to the world. I could write books on all of those who like Latimer put the lie to your argument.
What have YOU done to bring light to the world, Robert? How might YOU change the course of human events? How might YOU do something to improve the lot of those you would see killed?
Oh… that’s right. You don’t want to see the end result of the killing. You’re not a racist, Robert. I wouldn’t put that on you, though racism would be an improvement over who and what you are now.
Yours was a rant for the ages.
Robert Berger said, “[The next president] will no doubt greatly decrease government help for the poor,and poor pregnant women,which will only INCREASE the number of abortions.”
The attitude of some pro-lifers on this site bothers me. No Christian pro-lifer should ever be fooled by the secular humanist pragmatism that pro-abort Robert Berger demonstrated in the above quotation. The reason that the Christian pro-lifer rejects abortion and abortifacients is that they amount to that premeditated killing of a human being which the Bible calls murder. There is a case to be made for the civil government’s killing of murderers and foreign aggressors–it’s actually a pro-life argument for anybody who takes the time to examine it–but a human being has worth whatever his size because the first human being was made like God Himself in some ways. Therefore, after the Flood, God decreed (Gen. 9) in no uncertain terms that only He Himself has authority to take human life. And when a state’s government exercises capital punishment, it is acting as the minister of God and is accountable to Him (Rom. 13).
Googals of human zygotes may naturally (providentially) die before implantation, and still there should not be one human zygote artificially prevented from implantation.
Robert,
“You anti-choicers never cease to amaze me.You wail endlessly about the “slaughter of the unborn in the womb,” ,uyet it’s perfectly okay with you if those “unborn” are born into abject poverty, malnutrition,lack of education and career opportunities,as well as abuse and neglect”
What are you talking about? How does this address anything we said above? Why are you changing the subject (to something that isn’t even true nonetheless) and avoiding actually discussing abortion?
” it’s perfectly okay with you if those “unborn” are born into abject poverty, malnutrition,lack of education and career opportunities,as well as abuse and neglect””
Oh of course, but that’s only because it’s easier to kill them AFTER they are born. It is much less traumatic for the mother. All we are doing is simply proposing that we kill teh poor and malnourished when they are outside the womb. Don’t worry Robert; we’re on your side. We want the poor dead and put out of their misery so that us rich, well-fed, well-educated, plethora of career opportunities folk who are cared for and papered don’t have to worry ourselves thinking about what a miserable pathetic existence the poor lead- we just disagree on when the best time to slice em up is.
Berger, Star Parker writes about that myth. Abortion has NEVER brought a woman out of poverty! Plenty of women find their way out of poverty even while being mothers! If you truly want to help the poor then why don’t you help charities that help the poor? KILLING THEM is NOT HELPING THEM.
Btw, I am pretty poor but I love being alive, thank you. And I want more babies. Don’t act like you have the right to demand the deaths of my children because my husband and I struggle to pay bills, thank you very much. You are an eugenicist elitist Robert Berger.
Robert,
I knew that your comments reminded me of someone. Now I remember:
Speaking of African Americans in 1970, Louisiana judge Leander Perez said,
“The best way to hate a ni@@er is to hate him before he is born.”
And…
Regarding our discussion of excommunications here a few days ago, this from Wikipedia:
In the spring of 1962, the Archdiocese of New Orleans announced its plan to desegregate the New Orleans parochial school system for the 1962–1963 school year. Perez led a movement to pressure businesses into firing any whites who allowed their children to attend the newly desegregated Catholic schools. Catholics in St. Bernard Parish boycotted one school, which the Archdiocese kept open without students for four months until it was burned down. In response, Archbishop Joseph Rummel excommunicated Perez on April 16, 1962. Perez responded by saying the Catholic Church was “being used as a front for clever Jews” and announced that he would form his own church, the “Perezbyterians.”
Perez also described himself at one point as “a Catholic, but not an Archbishop’s Catholic.”[3] He eventually reconciled with the church before his death and received a requiem mass at Holy Name of Jesus Christ Church at Loyola University in New Orleans. He is interred at his home in Plaquemines Parish.[6]
So Robert, I suppose there’s still hope for you.
Robert,
Your generalizations are ludicrous, to use one of your favorite words.
Could you do a survey among real poor people (if you know any) and ask them if they think their children would be better off dead than living a poor life? Ask them if they have the ability to improve their lot in life or only the ability to live off government money for the rest of their lives. What pessimism (under the guise of compassion) you have.
Berger says:
“I’m extremely worried about a right-wing President being elected next year and replacing Obama. He or she will no doubt greatly decrease government help for the poor,and poor pregnant women,which will only INCREASE the number of abortions. greatly.Don’t you anti-choicers have the sense to realize this?”
It is good to see that libs are worried their man is in trouble. Oh, and Robert, like I am supposed to believe you are so concerned about an increase in the number of abortions? Give me a break!
As welfare programs increased so did the number of abortions. So erect another straw man.
“it’s perfectly okay with you if those “unborn” are born into abject poverty, malnutrition,lack of education and career opportunities,as well as abuse and neglect.”
Actually it’s not perfectly OK with us if that happens, but neither is it OK with us that these children are put to death. It is not an act of mercy to kill someone in order to prevent them from potential future suffering. It is abominable.
Robert,
You abortion as a solution to poverty folks never cease to amaze ME. If death is a preferable state to poverty I see no reason that it should be so for the unborn, but cease to be so at the moment of birth. A nanosecond after that child is born, he or she is in no different a state in regard to his probability of a life you see as less than worth living than he or she was in before birth. How does a fear for the struggles a human might face justify murdering him/her to prevent those struggles one moment, but not the next? Admit that your argument is nothing but a distraction b/c it crumbles to dust unless you make the assumption that the unborn human being does not deserve our protection. Since that’s an argument you refuse to engage in, you assume it and start leaping off in all sorts directions that are totally irrelevant but for your begging the central question of the debate.
Robert Berger said: To call abortion a “holocaust” is an insult to all the Jews who died in the Nazi holocaust and their families and descendants.
No, it’s not an insult to the Jews, because we’re not diminishing what they went through. We’re recognizing that abortion is a horrifying situation, which is exactly what the holocaust was. You couldn’t find ANY OTHER debate point to bring up? Do you realize how many times this one has been dealt with on this blog alone? Abortion is the death of THOUSANDS of babies EVERY DAY.
Robert Berger said: And please don’t give me all that B.S. about adoption,because it’s absolutely impossible for all children born to poor mothers to be adopted,or even the majority.
Okay. Robert, despite the fact that this part hurts me since I know a lot of people who are adopted and people who have adopted and/or would adopt, I’m going to figure you don’t realize what you’re saying. I’m very sorry you don’t get that adoption does help people. No it doesn’t solve all problems, I don’t know of anyone on here who has claimed that. But it has and does help people. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I hope very much to forgive you for those words. May God bless you and I hope He isn’t angry at you for your words.
Make no mistake, Robert, despite what you think about pro-lifers, we do not WISH poverty on anyone. In fact, we don’t think it’s “okay” for people to be born in poverty, but we also know that abortion does not solve the problem of poverty. It doesn’t take poverty away and it doesn’t get women OUT of poverty.
Additional thought for you Robert, with a question.
In NYC, blacks abort 60% of their pregnancies. Harlem and East New York remain as blighted as ever. So, under the Berger plan for humanity, does this mean that not enough black babies are being killed? Would you care to proffer a number that would serve the black community well? Obviously, by your estimation, 60% is too low.
“still, Democrat pro-abort IL Attorney General Lisa Madigan plans to spend money our bankrupted state does not have to appeal the ruling.”
This is the modus-operandi of the Democrats (the left). They gets stays on the implementation of the law and appeal to ties things up in the courts and leave laws unenforceable. I did not realize Walgreens did that to pharmacists. I will quit shopping there and I hope they get sued by the ones who lost their jobs for NOT dispensing abortificients.
Robert, on facebook the call went out for an adoptive family for a little girl. Her mother found out she has spina bifida and was going to abort her today. She is five months gestation. The mother said she would not abort if someone would offer to adopt her. This is a special needs baby and the response from pro-lifers BEGGING to adopt this little girl who you would deem unworthy of life, was astounding! Including my own sister who has 4 boys and lives in Canada wanted to see how she could get around the bureaucratic red tape Canada puts up to block adoptions and bring this little girl into her own family. So your argument that no one can adopt all these babies is FALSE. There are TONS of families that want to adopt these “unwanted” children but you know what gets in the way??? Government red tape. People like YOU prevent it Robert. Congratulations.
An egg that is fertilized can split in two forming identical twins. If the fertilized egg was originally a complete person, where is that person? Two fertilized eggs can join and create a chimera that appears just like anyone else.
On the other hand, abortions often involve tearing apart a fetus that is “formed” with a head and arms and legs.
It is far better to prevent pregnancy with the morning after pill than abort later. Deny females the morning after pill and you contribute to abortion.
Take away her right to get drunk while pregnant and you contribute to abortion too huh Denise??? The liberal logic is amazing.
truthseeker says:
April 8, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Take away her right to get drunk while pregnant and you contribute to abortion too huh Denise??? The liberal logic is amazing.
(Denise) This isn’t liberal logic. I’m repulsed by abortion and want to see less of it. The morning-after pill is a tool in working to reduce abortion. It stops a pregnancy before it starts. Thus, the female is less likely to abort later on.
For example, a female may not have been using hormonal contraceptives. She gets raped. She doesn’t want to be pregnant by the rapist. She goes to a pharmacy and gets the morning-after pill. It works and she has her period.
OTOH, she goes to a pharmacy and that pill is refused. Sadly, she may find out she is pregnant — and abort.
The simple fact is that females who are overjoyed to find out they are pregnant are unlikely to abort. We have to work to ensure that pregnancy isn’t a time of crisis but one of joy.
Really Denise. Do research on BIOLOGY and how the morning after pill works before posting such silliness. If you can’t do your research before commenting I am not wasting my time with you.
Sydney M. says:
April 9, 2011 at 11:21 am
Really Denise. Do research on BIOLOGY and how the morning after pill works before posting such silliness. If you can’t do your research before commenting I am not wasting my time with you.
(Denise) Emergency contraception works primarily by preventing ovulation. It may also prevent implantation but have no effect after implantation.
EC is important in the struggle to reduce abortions by reducing crisis pregnancies.
Note: I’m perfectly open to promoting abstinence. I don’t believe partnered sex is a “need” for anyone.
Denise, you are absolutely correct that Plan B works as you stated. While pregnancy may technically begin at implantation (thus Plan B’s claims that it does not abort a pregnancy but prevents pregnancy) human life begins at conception, NOT implantation. Thus Plan B is still killing a human being. How can you honestly expect pro-lifers to support that?
Sydney M. says:
April 9, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Denise, you are absolutely correct that Plan B works as you stated. While pregnancy may technically begin at implantation (thus Plan B’s claims that it does not abort a pregnancy but prevents pregnancy) human life begins at conception, NOT implantation. Thus Plan B is still killing a human being. How can you honestly expect pro-lifers to support that?
(Denise) What it usually does is prevent OVULATION — thus preventing an egg from being fertilized. You’ve got to support the prevention of a pregnancy that is likely to end with the fetus being ripped out of the womb.
It may sometimes prevent implantation. The fertilized egg at that point can split into twins. What happened to the “person” it supposedly was? It can also join with another fertilized egg to create a single normal fetus. Did two people get killed so one could be made?
At any rate, the failure of a fertilized egg to implant has got to be considered superior to the ripping out of a fetus with a head, arms, and legs that will be torn off as it is ripped out. That is the likely fate of a pregnancy due to the refusal of someone to get Plan B.
Twinning, the spliting of one embryo into two is technically asexual reproduction, just like single celled and some multicelled organisms reproduce. The fact the, for a tiny window of time, the human being is capable of asexual reproduction doesn’t make it not a human. And, medically speaking, when two embryos fuse in chimeraism, yes, one dies and is obsorbed by the other. The same thing can happen to what’s called ‘fetal twins’, which is exceptionally more rare, where one twin developes within the body cavity of the other for a short time before dying, causing the living twin to in effect be ‘pregnant’ with it’s own twin upon birth. The marvels, and failures, or the human reproductive system does not make someone not human.
And Plan B has been repeatedly shown to NOT lower the number of unwanted pregnancies or abortions. Even the FDA admitted that the availibility of the drug OTC has done little to nothing to slow the increase in unexpected pregnancies and abortion. The failure is even more obvious in other countries where it has been OTC for longer. If it DID work as intended, to lower unplanned pregnancies/abortions, then your arguement may have cause to be adressed (whether an early death is better than a later one), but it DOESN’T work, so the point is moot. The real point is why be for a dangerous drug sold OTC which may cause an abortion and has not lived up to what it promised to do, lower abortion and unplanned pregnancies.
If a female who has not been using hormonal contraceptives has just been raped, what should she do to protect herself against pregnancy by the rapist?