What every pro-lifer (esp Mitt Romney) should know about Tim Pawlenty
Guest post by Joel Brind, Ph.D.
He may or may not be on Mitt Romney’s short list for VP, but journalists always seem to have his name near the top of their list. At least Tim Pawlenty’spro-life credentials are reliable, right?
Well if you ask me, the view from under the Pawlenty bus ain’t so pretty.
As you may know, I have been researching and trying to bring into public awareness the abortion-breast cancer link (ABC link) for twenty years with some success, no thanks to Gov. Pawlenty.
Oh sure, in 2003 he signed into law the Women’s Right to Know law that required informed consent before abortion, the law previous Gov. Jesse Ventura had vetoed. And yes, Minnesota is one of only a handful of states that specifically mentions breast cancer as one of the medical risks of abortion explicitly in the statute. And yes, under Gov. Pawlenty’s watch in 2003, and according to the new law, a “handbook” for pregnant women was posted on the Minnesota Dept. of Health website to explain the facts about pregnancy and the risks of childbirth and abortion, including increased risk of breast cancer with abortion.
But something else had also happened in 2003 that soon affected what showed up on Pawlenty’s decision desk.
Under pro-life Congressional pressure to acknowledge the ABC link (in the form of a letter signed by no less than 28 Representatives) the National Cancer Institute held a 3-day “workshop” to review the evidence. In reality, it was a political charade designed to give the NCI’s official imprimatur to the denial of the ABC link. (As one of 100 invited experts, I was a participant and the sole dissenter from the official denial. Read my minority report here.
The official denial of the ABC link by the corrupt federal bureaucrats at the NCI cast a worldwide pall over efforts to educate the public, to be sure, but who would expect that pressure from the organization that represents the abortionists would sway a pro-life governor to pull the ABC link info from his state’s informational website?
Yet that’s exactly what happened, as a letter from the CEO of the Minnesota Medical Society, Robert Meiches, was all it took for Gov. Pawlenty to summarily delete the ABC link info from the state Dept. of Health website.
But lest the reader rush to Pawlenty’s defense, as one who does not have the requisite expertise to determine which side was correct about the existence of the ABC link (although one might expect him to defer to his own majority voices in both houses of the state legislature!), his willful avoidance of being educated on the issue was telling indeed.
You see, one of the state legislators who had sponsored the new law, Tim Wilkin, knew the governor well, and contacted me in New York to see if I was willing to give the governor a briefing on the subject, as he knew of the Meiches letter and Pawlenty’s consideration of doing Meiches’ bidding. I absolutely was willing – and told Wilkin so – to make the trip to Minnesota at my own expense to do so, anytime that the Governor was available.
But alas, as Wilkin informed me subsequently, Gov. Pawlenty was not interested in learning about the ABC link, and rather summarily yanked the ABC link info from the informational website handbook for pregnant women.
Today, the Minnesota Dept. of Health website’s handbook for pregnant women is even worse, carrying the NCI party line. It cites the phony NCI “workshop” consensus and an additional high profile (but fraudulent) review by a group at Oxford University, which, according to the website, “also indicated there is no link between abortion and breast cancer.” (Check out this website, which also shows links to summaries of the NCI report and the Oxford paper.).
Meanwhile, in the years since 2004, many more studies have come out which support the reality of the ABC link. Several are ironically from despotic nations such as China and Iran, and one American study, published in 2009, was actually co-authored by NCI official Louise Brinton (pictured left). Brinton was actually the official who orchestrated the phony 2003 “workshop” that essentially banished the ABC link from the public mind, valid scientific evidence – even her own – be damned.
So the end result in Minnesota is that a law which was intended to warn women about the dangers of abortion, instead falsely reassures them of abortion’s alleged long-term safety.
Thank you, Tim Pawlenty. At least now we know that when push comes to shove, he will defer to the federal bureaucracy and the abortionists’ rep. Not exactly the kind of official who could be relied upon to say, defund Planned Parenthood.
Seems to me Mr. Romney has some much better genuinely pro-life veep candidates to choose from.
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.
Funny how you only care about nations like Iran and China when their research fits your agenda. If their research contradicted your crazy beliefs, you’d be saying “what do they know about anything”
This article is way, way off. Tim Pawlenty is 100% pro-life. He voted pro-life as a legislator, signed every pro-life bill we could get to him as Governor and he actively worked to enact pro-life legislation. The fact that he was not convinced by the scientific data available pritor to 2004 on the ABC link says NOTHING about his pro-life convictions. Thousands and thousands of Minnesotans are alive today because of pro-life Governor Tim Pawlenty and the pro-life laws he signed.
For the truth about Tim Pawlenty and abortion click here:
http://www.mccl.org/document.doc?id=455
Scott Fischbach
Executive Director
MCCL
Minnesota has since its inception been by enlarge a liberal state due to the very large concentration of immigrants from the Scandanavian countries. Jill, put two and two together ELCA and Christ Hospital? Infanticide was a norm in preChristian Scandanavia. The Vikings practiced “death by exposure” for their undesirable offspring. Even Sociologists will agree that “Culture” is more difficult to change than anything! Infanticide is recorded as a practice in the Old Norse Sagas. One could perhaps forgive it if it was performed in times of starvation with the lack of knowledge for family planning, but in this day and age with the worlds ability to produce food, no excuse. Even so “Death by exposure” was far more humane than abortion as we clearly understand it today!!
I am really disappointed to see what amounts to a misleading slap in the face to one of the true friends of the pro-life movement, Governor Pawlenty.
Governor Pawlenty worked very closely with pro-life groups for many years both as a member of the legislature and as governor to get this important Right to Know bill into law in Minnesota and he signed this pro-life measure into law. In fact, Pawlenty deserves praise for signing what may very well have been the first law ever to inform women of the link about abortion and breast cancer.
That the Minnesota state health department took the information and watered it down is not Pawlenty’s fault and he was upset the bureaucrats there did that.
In fact, Scott Fischbach, executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, the state’s leading pro-life group and someone who worked for years with Pawlenty and has staff and describes him as nothing short of a pro-life champion and hero, told me at the time and told me today that Pawlenty is not the culprit here.
“This change is a disservice to the women of Minnesota who deserve to have a right to know all of the information possible about the link between abortion and breast cancer,” he told me in 2004. “The MN Health Department has been controlled by radical pro-abortionist for many, many years. It is not ironic that this action was taken by the Health Department exactly one year to the day that the Governor signed the legislation into law.” http://www.lifenews.com/2004/04/15/state-516/
“The spirit of the Woman’s Right to Know law is to inform women of all the facts about abortion risks, complications and alternatives before they make their decision whether to undergo the abortion procedure,” Fischbach said. “The pro-abortion operatives in the Minnesota Department of Health have never supported the law. Extremists within the department have spent the last year trying to dismantle the Woman’s Right to Know law’s abortion/breast cancer information, instead of helping women understand the substantial risks that abortions could pose to their health.”
In fact it was staff in the Minnesota health department who failed to follow Governor Pawlenty’s and then-Health Commissioner Dianne Mandernach’s lead on the abortion-breast cancer language.
As someone who has worked on pro-life legislation in several states for the last two decades I can tell you fur certain that this isn’t new in terms of bureaucrats getting in the what of what our pro-life governors and legislators pass. This happens every year in every state — including in states like Tennessee where legislative staff just this year changed the wording of a bill that de-funded Planned Parenthood and the state was forced to go back and de-fund it administratively through the governor’s office.
To blame Governor Pawlenty for the actions of pro-abortion activists in the health department is wrong. Anyone who understands the way in which state government operates and the legal protections they have via their strong unions that makes it virtually impossible to fire them understands it’s often difficult to do anything in response to them.
Instead of condemning Pawlenty, Dr, Brind should have praised him for being the first governor to raise the abortion-breast cancer link in legislation at a time when the pro-life movement didn’t have the full understanding of the link that it does today, a decade later. Today, with the massive target on Planned Parenthood and the very public Komen feud, more people understand the link and more research has been done to substantiate it.
In fact, at that time, the battle with NCI was new to most pro-lifers and Pawlenty didn’t have the benefit of knowing that, years later, NCI’s own lead researcher on the topic would co-author a paper admitting the ABC link exists (five years later). http://www.lifenews.com/2009/01/01/nat-5850/
It’s easy to play armchair quarterback and make broad statements that Pawlenty wouldn’t be a foe of Planned Parenthood because of some obscure action a decade ago that is, at worst, a small blight on an otherwise sterling pro-life record. However, the fact is he has REPEATEDLY called for de-funding Planned Parenthood. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/06/07/tim-pawlenty-i-would-sign-ban-on-planned-parenthood-funding/
The fact of the matter is that Tim Pawlenty is a pro-life standard-bearer. He signed every pro-life law given to him, he helped bring abortions to historic lows in Minnesota (http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/26/pawlenty-credited-with-helping-minnesota-abortions-drop-again/), he would bend over backwards for pro-life groups, he helped post-abortion groups, he would actually go to and spend time with pro-lifers at events, and his wife is a pro-life stalwart herself who, like the governor, shares a deep Christian faith that is a wellspring of their shared pro-life views.
I know Governor Pawlenty and I’ve talked to him at length about these issues and I can guarantee you he is completely and totally pro-life. I wrote the article he cited numerous times during the GOP primary debates about him having one of the most lengthy pro-life records of any candidate in the race. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263347/tim-pawlenty-may-be-strongest-pro-life-candidate-2012-steven-ertelt
I’ve also talked with him about ending abortion and about being absolutely certain that the judges we get are ones who would be likely to do so. He gets it.
And this misleading and unfair column notwithstanding, Tim Pawlenty is one of us: truly pro-life.
Sincerely,
Steven Ertelt, Editor
LifeNews.com
Mr. Fischbach,
Pardon me for interjecting, but: surely you can see that your points (and I’ll address those in a moment) really aren’t germane to Mrs. Stanek’s points at all? No one is saying that Gov. Pawlenty is a complete “wash” from a pro-life stand-point; he does, in fact, seem quite good in that regard. However, your rebuttal didn’t refute (or even address with any substance) Mrs. Stanek’s comments about the ABC link (vis-a-vis Gov. Pawlenty) in the least! Didn’t that strike you as rather a curious omission, given that it was the predominant point of the article you dismissed as “way, way off”?
As to the substance of your comment, you wrote:
This article is way, way off. Tim Pawlenty is 100% pro-life.
I can understand why you might use such enthusiastic hyperbole, friend, but this statement is simply not true. Aside from the ABC issue (which is, again, Jill’s main point), are you unaware of the fact that Gov. Pawlenty tolerates abortions in the cases of rape and incest? You may have to explain your “100 pro-life” claim, or else modify it, I think.
http://www.ontheissues.org/governor/Tim_Pawlenty_Abortion.htm
He voted pro-life as a legislator,
That is admirable (if somewhat vague).
signed every pro-life bill we could get to him as Governor
Er… did you try to pass a law regarding the notification of the credible danger of an abortion-breast cancer link? If not, then you’ve left Jill’s claim untouched. (Did you even attempt to send him a bill outlawing abortion in cases of rape and/or incest? Again: I do not disparage the good work you have (or he has) done; but this is not a zero-sum game in which Gov. Pawlenty is either 100% pro-life or 0% pro-life; he really does seem to be somewhere in-between.)
and he actively worked to enact pro-life legislation.
See above; and I’m afraid that’s rather too vague to be of much use, given the specific nature of this thread (and Jill’s original topic).
The fact that he was not convinced by the scientific data available pritor to 2004 on the ABC link says NOTHING about his pro-life convictions.
“Prior to 2004?” Did he not serve as governor until 2011? And were not the data which shook up the “party line” (i.e. complete denial of the ABC link) available before 2011? And did he not flatly turn down Jill’s offer to supply “available scientific data” which his non-specialist advisors might possibly have missed or neglected? And while it’s rather poetic to speak of the governor’s “pro-life convictions”, you seem to be implying that all of the above has no pro-life implications re: the governor… and I can’t fathom how you could make such a claim seriously. At face value, it’s simply false… and the only other “value” I could see it possessing is that of rhetorical value… which simply doesn’t substitute for logic, friend.
Thousands and thousands of Minnesotans are alive today because of pro-life Governor Tim Pawlenty and the pro-life laws he signed.
That may be true. It is also quite beside the main point.
For the truth about Tim Pawlenty and abortion click here:
http://www.mccl.org/document.doc?id=455
Scott Fischbach
Executive Director
MCCL
(*sigh*) My dear fellow, perhaps your zeal led you to give Jill’s article less than a full and careful reading; could you possibly read it again, and then address the salient points a bit more exactly? I mean no offense… but when you make such striking claims as you’ve done, with so very little evidence of their relevance (or even accuracy, in some cases), I hope you can understand why I’m not exactly convinced by them, yet.
Interesting points, Paldin, but I would just like to point out you keep referring to Jill, even though she did not write this post. It is a guest post by Joel Briend, as is indicated at the top.
Paladin,
As far as rape and incest are concerned, you’re citing old information. Governor Pawlenty, after much prayer and reflection, came to the concluson that he could not tolerate abortions in cases of rape or incest and said as much in a debate in August 2011. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/12/gop-presidential-candidates-push-pro-life-themes-in-debate/
“In terms of my personal views, the only exception I can really reconcile or justify is the life of the mother. And I would sign that bill if it came in that form as president or as governor,” he said.
Steven
Dear Mr. Ertelt,
First: please allow me to say that I’ve been an admirer of your work (and of you) for many years… and I wish nothing of what I say to detract from that plain fact. Thank you for all you do (which is gargantuan). But we are discussing a specific claim, here… and I’m afraid your own counter-claims seem to have some rather significant problems. To wit:
[Steve Ertelt]
That the Minnesota state health department took the information and watered it down is not Pawlenty’s fault and he was upset the bureaucrats there did that.
That seems to be your thesis, in your recent comment (i.e. other bureaucrats, and not Gov. Pawlenty, are to blame for the change in the state health documents regarding the ABC issue). Can you, then, reconcile your idea with this claim of Jill’s?
[Jill Stanek]
You see, one of the state legislators who had sponsored the new law, Tim Wilkin, knew the governor well, and contacted me in New York to see if I was willing to give the governor a briefing on the subject, as he knew of the Meiches letter and Pawlenty’s consideration of doing Meiches’ bidding. I absolutely was willing – and told Wilkin so – to make the trip to Minnesota at my own expense to do so, anytime that the Governor was available.
But alas, as Wilkin informed me subsequently, Gov. Pawlenty was not interested in learning about the ABC link, and rather summarily yanked the ABC link info from the informational website handbook for pregnant women.
There are, in fact, two events regarding the state documentation about the ABC issue which Jill decried: (1) the removal of any positive information on the topic (during Gov. Pawlenty’s tenure), and (2) the addition of negative information (i.e. actively denying the ABC link) on the state health agency website. You seem to be claiming that (2) was the fault of bureaucrats, and not of Gov. Pawlenty (is that correct?); but you leave untouched the original claim that Gov. Pawlenty essentially “blew Jill off” in the days before the original positive claims were deleted. Can you explain/clarify?
Secondly, you wrote:
I know Governor Pawlenty and I’ve talked to him at length about these issues and I can guarantee you he is completely and totally pro-life.
Friend, forgive me, but this is arrant nonsense. He personally supports the legal “right” of a woman to kill a child by abortion if he/she was conceived through rape and/or incest (see link, above); this is not simply a case where “he is absolutely against all abortion, but he’s unable to pass such pure legislation through the state legislature”; he is on the record, expressing that abortion-tolerant position as HIS OWN. Did you not know this?
Ah! Thank you, JDC… my error!
Mr. Ertelt,
Sorry… I didn’t see your reply while I was typing mine. That’s an interesting bit of new information… but curious in its timing. As late as June 13 of that same year, during the Manchester, NH debate, Gov. Pawlenty made no objection when the moderator described his [i.e. Gov. Pawlenty’s] position as opposing “abortion rights except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is at stake”. So… you say that he prayerfully changed his position on that in the space of two months (from June 13 to August 11)? Possible… but somewhat taxing on the fullness of credibility, IMHO. Even in your own article (which you cited), the claim was rather cagey: “The former Minnesota governor didn’t have much support for abortions in cases of rape or incest.” Why would the phrase be “not much”, rather than “none at all”, if this is the evidence you’re presenting to refute the original idea?
At least, I hope how you could see why I’d be a bit wary of your claim?
http://www.ontheissues.org/governor/Tim_Pawlenty_Abortion.htm
Paladin,
Thanks for the kind words, they are truly appreciated.
To the Brind claim that Pawlenty removed the ABC information, it is false — as any little bit of fact-checking before the writing or publishing of this opinion column would have found. As I already noted from my own 2004 article, citing Fischbach, whose group Pawlenty and staff worked very closely with, longtime pro-abortion bureaucrats in the Minnesota Department of Health are responsible for wrecking the ABC link information on the web site.
As far as a meeting with Brind is concerned, I’m pursuing information on that point from people who may know more. But, in my opinion, to claim Pawlenty wasn’t interested in the information is a bit flippant. There were likely very legitimate scheduling or other reasons that prevented him from doing so. That, of course, is assuming Governor Pawlenty was ever truly informed about a meeting in the first place. Perhaps the information slipped through the cracks in an honest mistake of a staffer not presenting it to the governor, for example. But that’s not as sexy of an explanation as a theory that Pawlenty just didn’t care.
And, seeing as how Pawlenty’s office worked with the leading pro-life group in the state on the legislation authorizing the ABC link information in the first place, it wasn’t as if Pawlenty’s office didn’t know about the link.
Also to the point, the entire article is based on third-hand accounts relying on what Dr. Brind heard from Rep. Wilkin as to what Governor Pawlenty supposedly thought at the time. Hardly primary source information and, conveniently, leaves out the other side of the story.
Finally, your comments about the Governor’s position on abortion in the cases of rape and incest are no longer accurate as he has adopted a pro-life position on them.
Yours,
Steven
Paladin,
Governor Pawlenty is a sincere and heartfelt Christian. When the subject of his abortion stance vis-a-vis rape and incest came up, he genuinely and prayerfully explored it and came to the conclusion that, just as he strenuously opposes abortion in all other situations, he couldn’t support abortions in those. I worked with Pawlenty’s staff at the time on conveying this very genuine change of heart on the subject and I can assure you that it was, and is, a thoughtful decision in an attempt to reconcile his pro-life position with his deep faith.
Despite not having won the nomination, Pawlenty has not reverted to his old view and remains fully pro-life. It’s always hard for politicians to ever be seen as genuinely altering their worldview on something fundamental without it being seen as political grandstanding. I can assure you that, in this case, it was from the heart.
Yours,
Steven
Minnesota has since its inception been by enlarge a liberal state due to the very large concentration of immigrants from the Scandanavian countries. Jill, put two and two together ELCA and Christ Hospital? Infanticide was a norm in preChristian Scandanavia. The Vikings practiced “death by exposure” for their undesirable offspring. Even Sociologists will agree that “Culture” is more difficult to change than anything!
Come on, now. The Dakotas also had large concentrations of Scandinavian immigrants, but they’re among the most pro-life states in the Union.
Navi, no the German Catholics trump the Scandanavians in North Dakota!! Then add the Irish Catholic, the French Canadian/ Metis, Muslem turned Catholic population…. the Polish and Czechs..You figure it out buddy…
35% for North Dakota, 27% for Minnesota:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_North_Dakota#Ethnic_groups_and_ancestry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Minnesota#Race_and_ancestry
As you were saying?
Hello again, Mr. Ertelt,
Before we begin discussing the finer details, I’d like to add: if it proves to be true (and I’m open to the possibility), I’ll be very pleased to find out that Gov. Pawlenty has improved his stance on fundamental life-issues. Please don’t take my wariness and efforts toward examination as signs of belligerence or a desire to dismiss/reject Gov. Pawlenty for extraneous reasons; but in this age where numerous contradictory stories are bandied about, many of which use identical terms to mean very different things (heavens, Nancy Pelosi described herself as a “fervent Catholic”, and Kathleen Sebelius described herself as “pro-life”!), and given the very grave stakes in play with these political matters, I now rarely allow myself the luxury of taking many claims in this arena at face-value.
That said: you wrote, in reply to my comment:
Governor Pawlenty is a sincere and heartfelt Christian.
Nowhere did I deny that, nor did I seek to suggest otherwise. At the risk of belabouring the point, let me make that point clear, while it’s in the air: I do not attribute malice or anti-Christian motives to Gov. Pawlenty (nor do I think any such claims are at all necessary, in order to cover the points at hand). Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Gov. Pawlenty were still in favour of keeping rape/incest abortions legal; I would *not* condemn him as “an evil man” or “a false Christian” or “an insincere and hypocritical person”, or any such broad-sweeping nonsense. It’s all too possible (and evidence abounds for it) for humans to be well-intentioned, sincere, and even paragons of heart-felt devotion (in the subjective sense), while still embracing positions which are objectively evil; the only difference (between such people and those who are truly malicious) is that their position stems from true and sincere error, ignorance, lack of proper formation and catechesis, and the like. I really do want that clear (and not contaminating the discussion as a red herring): I do not see any necessary logical connection between “[x] supports/tolerates [objective moral evil]” and “[x] is an evil, corrupt, insincere, etc., person”.
When the subject of his abortion stance vis-a-vis rape and incest came up, he genuinely and prayerfully explored it and came to the conclusion that, just as he strenuously opposes abortion in all other situations, he couldn’t support abortions in those.
If so, then I’m quite pleased to hear that. I do hope, however, that you understand why I (and others) might need a bit of convincing, on that point, given the following:
1) Gov. Pawlenty was undeniably on the record as supporting/tolerating (albeit reluctantly, and not enthusiastically) the legality of abortion in cases of rape and incest (I’ll leave the “life of the mother” issue for another discussion; it’s a complex one), and he held that position for most of his tenure as Governor, even by your account.
2) The alleged change in his position came in what seems to be a very short period of time (apparently 2 months, at most), and it came during a political campaign in which many people were vying for the position of “anti-Obama” (most notably, “anti- Obama’s strident and fulsome enthusiasm for legal abortion of all types”).
3) Re: #2: in the Manchester debate, the exchange went like so:
This was perhaps the most open invitation possible for Gov. Pawlenty to object to the characterisation of his position: the moderator said “this [in detail] is his position, what say you?”, and it’s rather odd that there’s not so much as a clarifying peep, or a comment to the effect of “Well, you know, I’m not quite sure that describes me anymore” from the Governor on that point, when his turn came. This is why it seems probable that he hadn’t yet “seen the light” (as per your portrayal) as of June 13. Had he given even the tiniest sign of a shifting position, I would have found it much easier to see (and believe) a “conversion in progress”. Do such conversions happen quietly and “off-stage”? Certainly, they do… but I cannot read minds or hearts; I can only judge based on the external data available to me.
4) Gov. Pawlenty (as I just discovered, in reading my source more closely) also embraced (and, so far as I can tell, still embraces) a position on embryonic stem-cell research which mirrored President Bush’s (gravely mistaken) position (i.e. so long as the children are dead anyway, keep using the cells resulting from their deaths); this, at least in my eyes, is an impairment to any aspirations to the “100% pro-life” claim. I would be equally uneasy with someone who said, for example, “Well… the slaughter of the Jews was horrid, but: so long as those *particular* Jews are dead already, we might as well let them be processed into sausage, so as to feed the innocent and starving people of the area!”
I worked with Pawlenty’s staff at the time on conveying this very genuine change of heart on the subject and I can assure you that it was, and is, a thoughtful decision in an attempt to reconcile his pro-life position with his deep faith.
If so, then I’m glad to hear that (and again, I’m truly not trying to be difficult, or even pedantic). I ask only that you understand the reasons why I (and others) find it a bit difficult to accept that claim immediately, and without scrutiny. Enthusiasm for candidates has led the best of people into making claims which are higher in political intensity and/or expediency than they are in the fullness of accuracy.
Also, re: your criticism of the original poster’s supposed third-hand comments: may I gently add that many of your rebuttals fall into a similar category? I do not say that as a provocation; I mention it simply to explain my position (i.e. trying to sort out two conflicting stories, with your word against his). This is hardly an easy chore, I’d add!)
Despite not having won the nomination, Pawlenty has not reverted to his old view and remains fully pro-life.
I do not (for myself) claim that Gov. Pawlenty has “reverted” to anything; I am currently examining your original claim, itself (i.e. that Gov. Pawlenty is “completely and totally pro-life”–which I take to be literal, rather than a stylised and idiomatic use of the words), in comparison to data which may suggest otherwise.
It’s always hard for politicians to ever be seen as genuinely altering their worldview on something fundamental without it being seen as political grandstanding. I can assure you that, in this case, it was from the heart.
I do not even say that it would need to be a crass political calculation such as you describe; but I could imagine a scenario in which a sincere but not-well-catechised individual was “swept by the situation” (in this case, a political competition) into a new position… but which would leave him similarly vulnerable to being “swept” elsewhere when other winds blow. If that is not the case with Gov. Pawlenty, then God bless him and protect his resolve; but–and I mean this with all due respect–I do not feel free to give an automatic nod to any such claim as this, simply because a devoted friend and/or admirer says so. (I don’t *dismiss* such sayings either, by the way; I consider them as one piece of data among many.)
Does that clarify my position, a bit?
Well, Jill, I followed the links you provided referencing that April 2009 study that Louise Brinton co-authored that was published by the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention and could not locate anything with her name on it in that time frame.
So, either it never existed or they have removed it from their website.
The study can be found here:
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/18/4/1157.full
Sorry for being out of town when my guest post was published. I’ll address the criticisms that have be made about the specific points I made in my post, in the order they were posted. For N.A.: The idea that I only value the papers from China and Iran because they suit my “agenda” and “crazy ideas”, assumes that I know nothing about the subject of abortion and breast cancer. The recent studies from China and Iran are legit, just like the literally dozens of studies from around the world since 1957 that show the link. The NCI’s denial of the link is based on a slew of fraudulent studies from operatives at the most prestigious institutions, publishing in the most prestigious journals, between 1997 and 2008. I have analyzed and deconstructed these fraudulent studies in many letters to the journals themselves, and also reviewed the literature from most of that period in a paper published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons in 2005. It is available here: http://www.jpands.org/vol10no4/brind.pdf
For Scott Fishbach: Your comment is rather odd in that you claim that i’m “way, way off”, but then proceed to make the same claim I did about Pawlenty’s having signed pro-life legislation into law (which, by the way, does not impress me at all. How hard is it to sign legislation passed by your own partisans in your legislature?). But then you talk about Pawlenty’s “not (being) convinced by the scientific data available prior to 2004 on the ABC link”. I did not say he wasn’t convinced, I said he refused to be briefed on the evidence. As for all the other things Pawlenty did as Governor to help the pro-life cause, I claim no knowledge about them, and am happy to take you at your word. What I do know is that, like so many other pro-life politicians (like f’rinstance, George W. Bush), the resistance re: the ABC link is so fierce that they back off and refuse to do battle on that front. That’s why I speculate that Mr. Pawlenty could not withstand the pressure to defund Planned Parenthood either. Would I support Tim Pawlenty if Mitt Romney picks him as the GOP candidate for VP? Absolutely. But as long as the question is open and there seem to be better choices out there from the pro-life perspective (when one considers how one has performed under fire), I’m going to campaign against him, because I just happened to be in a position to know how he acts when it’s crunch time for us, and he is not knowledgeable in the area under contention. What he did was defer to “experts”, in this case, the MN affiliate of the AMA, the trade organization that represents the abortionists, citing the “experts” at the NCI.
And here’s what you and Mr. Pawlenty need to understand about the “experts” at the NCI: They are not–just because they have ivy league PhD’s and MD’s and do cancer research for a living–honest and brilliant and dedicated public servants (almost saints, really, in the public mind). Rather, the NCI “experts” on the ABC link are just another bunch of corrupt federal bureaucrats who will squash us like bugs if they can, and foist false information on the nation and the world to further their own radical agenda.
Here’s another way to look at it: You’ve heard the maxim: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Well, the NCI has virtually absolute power over worldwide public knowledge about what causes cancer and what does not. And they control the purse strings of most of the cancer research that goes on worldwide. So when I attended the so-called 2003 “workshop” on “early reproductive events and breast cancer risk” at the NCI, and tried to get an honest colleague to sign on to my minority report, I was told: “I have to live with these people every day; they have to sign off on my grants.” If you are a long-standing grantee and don’t play ball, the NCI bureaucrats have the power to shut down whole research institutions and put hundreds of people out of work.
So that’s what we’re up against. And frankly, politicians like Pawlenty are no use to us in this battle. So does this all mean that I would require all our politicians not to defer to experts, and to get individually educated on every arcane aspect of the life issues? Of course not. One needs to be able to defer to experts. But the most basic aspect of such deferral is to know which experts to which to defer. Hello! Tim Pawlenty! Listen to the pro-life experts who actually convinced YOUR legislators to include the ABC link in the WRTK law. Why are you deferring to the abortionists’ experts, without even listening to your own, if not for political expediency?
Maybe, after all, Tim Pawlenty is the best we can do. But I sure hope not.
Steve Ertelt, your comments are unduly harsh, and a lot of what you say is simply not true. For one thing you claim that “the entire article is based on third-hand accounts relying on what Dr. Brind heard from Rep. Wilkin as to what Governor Pawlenty supposedly thought at the time.” Actually, that is second-hand–not third hand–by definition. Even so, I did not rely on Rep. Wilkin’s divinations or speculations, but what he told me of personal conversations he had with the Governor.
That leads us to the second point, about it not being Gov. Pawlenty’s fault that the ABC-link language was deleted from the state’s website. Rather, you blame the bureaucrats, in fact, you make that point in several different ways in your various comments. Most interesting is your example of what happened in Tennessee, where the bureaucrats “changed the wording of a bill that de-funded Planned Parenthood and the state was forced to go back and de-fund it administratively through the governor’s office”. So let me get this straight: The bureaucrats went behind the legislature’s and the governor’s back to gut some pro-life legislation. But then, it got fixed, by whom? By the Governor! You would think the Governor was the state’s chief executive, and indeed, he is. Thus, you make my own argument rather efficiently, Steven. Moreover, you claim that my “claim that Pawlenty removed the ABC information, it is false.” As noted above, Rep. Wilkin pinned the action to the Governor specifically. But even if someone else did it under his authority, the governor is still responsible for it. But he did not take responsibility for it, and did nothing to fix it–ever–even though he was Governor until 2011.
The third important point you raise concerns the thesis you put forward that “Dr. Brind should have praised him (Gov. Pawlenty) for being the first governor to raise the abortion breast cancer link in legislation at a time when the pro-life movement didn’t have the full understanding of the link that it does today, a decade later.” Now that would have in fact been false, because it was a decade prior when the first handful of states passed WRTK laws which included warnings about the ABC link. To be fair, most–like Louisiana–did not mention the ABC link specifically in the statute. But it did in Mississippi, which went into effect in 1994, I think. So it is you who are about a decade late with your facts, Mr. Ertelt. And as to the pro-life movement’s “having the full understanding of the link”, does it make sense that a handful of states should succeed in passing laws about it without enough understanding to push past the pro-death bureaucrats in two legislative houses in each of these states, without their pro-life constituencies being well informed on the issue? (And to be fair, one of the states to pass such a law during the 1990’s was indeed Minnesota, but Gov. Jesse Ventura vetoed it.) And does it make sense that the pro-life movement does not understand the issue when 28 Congressmen forced Pres. Bush to have the NCI take down their disinformational web page re: the ABC link? It was a result of that that the NCI ultimately forced the issue with their phony “workshop”. And the purpose of that “workshop” was precisely to force states (and nations!) to abandon their support of the science supporting the ABC link. And Governor Pawlenty fell right in line, with no resistance, and the ABC warning and the reference to my minority report of the “workshop” were deleted. The pro-life movement–and the world, for that matter–was never better educated on the ABC link than in 2003. It went downhill from there–by design–and the 2009 paper which was co-authored (likely inadvertently) by the “workshop” organizer (and head of the section on Genetics and Epidemiology at the NCI) Louise Brinton, was a welcome bit of news, but the ABC link is officially still nonexistent. Just check the MN Dept of Health website!
So please forgive me if you think my criticisms of Mr. Pawlenty to be unduly harsh. But his actions concerning the ABC link in the MN WRTK act tell us a lot about who he is as a public official and a politician. (Our Lord said we “shall know them by their fruits”.) What you say about the bureaucracies is true, which makes it all the more critical to have a chief executive who can and will stand up to them for the cause of life. And my experience with Mr. Pawlenty’s office–though second-hand (as well as the fact that the MN website still outright denies the ABC link) indicates to me that Mr. Pawlenty is not the man we need to be a heartbeat away from the US Presidency.
Joel,
I’m not going to go into a point by point rebuttal (i.e. my saying that this was one of the first bills mentioning the ABC link and your rebuttal that it wasn’t exactly the first even though it was still one of the very early ones almost a decade ago. Who cares! I’m not interested in splitting hairs over who gets the glory, the more important thing is the governor signed a monumentally pro-life bill that has saved thousands of lives even if the state health department botched it. The children alive today because of the bill he signed would STRONGLY disagree with your assessment of Gov Pawlenty’s pro-life views/record).
The short of it is this. You are relying on what appears to be incorrect information from one person to make false argument that Governor Pawlenty is not trustworthy on pro-life issues. Discounting his entire pro-life record, which I’ve already repeatedly demonstrated is quite substantial, you rely on the testimony of one person to convict the governor and claim he’s not good for the pro-life movement.
All of the information I’ve gathered from the people most closely involved with this situation (my conversations with former Pawlenty staffers) and what has been provided here from the leader of the pro-life group that actually brought this bill to the governor in the first place and worked with him on it, makes it very clear that the MN Health Department went behind Pawlenty’s back and removed the ABC link information.
This is the last comment I will be making here. That we have already spent so much time having to defend a pro-life friend from criticism from a fellow pro-lifer is disappointing. I know Governor Pawlenty, the pro-life people in his state know Governor Pawlenty and we know him to be solidly pro-life.
Steven
I don’t want to re-hash the discussion of Gov. Pawlenty any further either, although it sounds to me like you did not contact “the one person” on whom I relied (Tim Wilkin).
But the larger issue seems to be the idea of “criticism from a fellow pro-lifer”, as if that is somehow morally wrong. When a number of people are vying for a position, as in a primary election with many pro-life choices, or in the “veepstakes”, it is not only OK, but necessary that all be scrutinized and questions raised about relevant actions. You seem to think that any politician with an essentially pro-life record should somehow be immune to any criticism from the pro-life side, as if they should all be canonized.
But here’s a case in point, which I actually also raised in one of my earlier comments: Because George W. Bush–an arguably pro-life President–sandbagged us on the ABC link by appointing Andy von Eschenbach to head the NCI, and I wrote about it and about what AVE did re: the ABC link, I could predict–and did–all too accurately that, as soon as von Eschenbach was appointed to head the FDA, the MAP would be summarily approved for over-the-counter distribution.
I believe that Gov. Pawlenty has been and would be every bit as pro-life in public office as was George W. Bush, and no more so. And I still believe we can do better.
And we need to do better, if we ever really want to end the scourge of abortion.