by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• The Morning Call has an article on the state of Pennsylvania’s decision to pull the operating registration of Steven Brigham abortion clinic in Allentown:
  

  The department pulled the registration after it learned that Allentown Medical Services lost its lease at 2200 Hamilton St. Since registrations for abortion facilities are specific to a location, losing the lease broke the terms of the registration, the state said.

  Additionally, Brigham and clinic officials showed a “chronic inability… to comply with the most fundamental statutory and regulatory requirements,” Deputy Secretary for Quality Assurance Anna Marie Sossong wrote in a revocation letter.

• The soon to be closed abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama will stay open until May 18th. A group of pro-lifers has protested outside the clinic:
  

  So why doesn’t the state shut the clinic down sooner than May 18? Attorneys for the state health department say that date was reached in a settlement with the clinic. They say had the department gone through a full out administrative hearing procedure, which was originally planned, it would have been at least June before the clinic would have had to close its doors.

  At one point in the featured news video, it appears that the abortion clinic turns its sprinklers on the pro-lifers.

• Speaking of the Birmingham clinic, Salon’s Irin Carmon is playing defense the best she can. Not until the second to last paragraph does Carmon provide the reasoning for the clinic’s coming closure:
  

  New Woman All Women’s most recent troubles started when [clinic owner Diane] Derzis called 911 on Jan. 21 because two women had accidentally been given 10 times the intended dosage of the drug Vasopressin. The protesters outside – whom Derzis had repeatedly battled in court – said they photographed the women getting into the ambulance and filed a complaint with the Department of Public Health. According to the subsequent report, “the registered nurse that made the medication error has had disciplinary action taken against her by the clinic. Medical records and interviews with clinical staff at the clinic did not indicate the patients were in immediate danger.” But the subsequent investigation produced a 76-page report, which mostly details violations of documentation — such as failing to have clear job descriptions for various employees and adequate orientation procedures — and legibility of records. Other findings were more serious, such as a chart being signed off by a nurse who wasn’t present in the clinic on that day and failure to document the monitoring of a patient who was given Pitocin. All added up to the surrender of the clinic’s license, rather than go through protracted negotiations.

  It’s amazing how far abortion advocates will go to defend obviously below standard abortion clinic. To treat “failing to have adequate orientation procedures” aka “employees weren’t properly trained to do their jobs” as if it is some minor detail is ridiculous.

[Image via hosp.uky.edu]

I have a soft spot for pro-life converts, which Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is. I think pro-lifers could do a  better job of supporting them. I think it is time for that to happen for some of us who have been reluctant about Romney. The fact that he used to be pro-abortion is the major hang-up.

I’ve told the story before of meeting then-gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie at the New Jersey’s Rally for Life in 2009, where he was maligned by his primary opponent as a fake, a political opportunist. There were even a few boos when he was introduced. Feeling sorry for Christie, who looked a little out of place, I approached his table during dinner, introduced myself, and sat down to offer encouragement for his conversion. He lightened up and talked a mile a minute, describing how he had changed his view on the life issue when becoming a father in the 1990s.

To start out pro-abortion and end up pro-life cannot be an easy process, particularly when one is in the public eye.

But Romney has made that change. Toward that end, as the Susan B. Anthony List pointed out in its endorsement today:

Romney has pledged to defund Planned Parenthood, restore the Mexico City Policy, support legislation to ban abortions based on fetal pain, and appoint only constitutionalist judges to the federal bench. Governor Romney has also committed to selecting a pro-life vice president.

Pro-lifers will always want more, but this is a great start. There are also many intangibles a pro-life president brings to the table. Just imagine a president whose Justice Department allows states to defund Planned Parenthood without suing, for instance?

But as to the most consequential duty of our next president, choosing 2-3 Supreme Court justices, Romney has already started down the path he promised. In August 2011 Romney formed a Judicial Advisory Committee, with two of the best pro-life minds agreeing to serve as chairpersons: Judge Robert Bork and Professor Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See.

As for lingering pro-life complaints against Romney, Glendon was part of a group of pro-life leaders from Massachusetts, which also included Kris Mineau, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Family Institute, and Ray Ruddy, President of the Gerard Health Foundation (which biannually awards Life Prizes), who corrected the record in a statement in January, posted on LifeNews.com:

Governor Romney vetoed bills to provide access to the so-called “morning-after pill,” which is an abortifacient, as well as a bill providing for expansive, embryo-destroying stem cell research.  He vetoed the latter bill in 2005 because he could not “in good conscience allow this bill to become law.”

We do not agree with the claims that Gov. Romney is responsible for tax payer funded abortion under the Massachusetts health care system. That blame lies solely on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court who ruled in 1981 that the Massachusetts Constitution required payment for abortions for Medicaid-eligible women. In 1997, the Court reaffirmed its position that a state-subsidized plan must offer “medically necessary abortions.”

In 2006, under Governor Romney’s leadership, Massachusetts’ public schools began to offer a classroom program on abstinence from the faith-based Boston group Healthy Futures to middle school students.  Promoting the program, Governor Romney stated, “I’ve never had anyone complain to me that their kids are not learning enough about sex in school. However, a number of people have asked me why it is that we do not speak more about abstinence as a safe and preventative health practice.”

We are aware of the 1994 comments of Senate candidate Romney, which have been the subject of much recent discussion.  While they are, taken by themselves, obviously worrisome to social conservatives including ourselves, they do not dovetail with the actions of Governor Romney from 2003 until now – and those actions have positively and demonstrably impacted the social climate of Massachusetts.

Since well before 2003, we have been laboring in the trenches of Massachusetts, fighting for the family values you and we share.  It is difficult work indeed – not for the faint of heart.  In this challenging environment, Governor Romney has proven that he shares our values, as well as our determination to protect them.

I agree with the sentiments expressed by Eric Scheidler, who wrote in an email (as a private citizen and not as Executive Director of Pro-Life Action League):

Now that Santorum is out, it’s this man’s opinion we all need to cowboy up and help Romney beat Obama.

And that starts, now, with avoiding all disparaging remarks about “holding one’s nose” and the like, which I’ve been seeing on Facebook these last few hours. From now on, I’m nothing but thrilled I’ve got a good man to rally behind, and I’ll leave it to Team Obama to make Romney look like anything less.

It also means working to convince our friends that sitting out this election is the wrong call. Yes, I’d rather have 8 years of Romney than 4 more years of Obama followed by the impossible task of undoing 4 more years of Obama.

Finally, defeating Obama with Romney shows the both of them, and the whole country with them, who owns the grassroots.

by LauraLoo

An Argentine woman who insisted on seeing the presumably lifeless body of her premature baby found the infant alive in the drawer of a hospital morgue. 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gbLcasbqJY[/youtube]

I have to admit this is one of my greatest fears and have to believe other people think likewise.  What if the medical professional who declares you dead ends up being wrong and there you are, stuffed in a refrigerator?  

Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.

[HT: Fox32 Chicago]

Katha Pollit, in the April issue of The Nation, lays out 6 reasons why giving to [the National Network of Abortion Funds] directly or to a local abortion rights fund is such a powerful act:

6. You will feel good. With reason!

~ meerkoet, sharing why her fellow pro-choicers should pay for other women’s abortions, Daily Kos, April 10

[Photo via mediamonarchy.blogspot.com]

I’m sure October Baby producers loved that headline, which sandwiched their little pro-life movie between one of the top box office draws of all time  and the sequel to another box office smash.

Here’s another one for their scrapbook…

After three weeks of limited release in 339 theaters nationwide, October Baby has surprised just about everyone as a sleeper success and this weekend will open in over 220 new venues.

To date  October Baby has earned $3.8 million, not bad for a movie that cost less than $1 million to make and had a “paltry” $3 million marketing budget.

With those kinds of profits on the horizon, October Baby has now attracted the attention of NARAL, since filmmakers Jon and Andy Erwin have committed to donating 10% of the movie’s royalties to the Every Life is Beautiful Fund, “which will distribute funds to frontline organizations helping women facing crisis pregnancies, life-affirming adoption agencies,” according to the website.

NARAL has now launched a petition drive targeting Sony, parent company of Provident Films, which took a gamble on October Baby when other studios wouldn’t…

Provident Films specializes in backing good faith-based movies, so I wonder what sort of abortion-themed films NARAL expects Provident to support other than pro-life.

After all, NARAL has the rest of the liberal film industry in its camp, even if they typically write pro-life story lines these days (Waitress, Knocked Up, Juno). Abortion apparently isn’t a money-maker. Even last year’s  Ides of March, starring George Clooney and Ryan Gosling, portrayed abortion in a terrible light.

But I digress. Here’ s another good headline sure to antagonize pro-choicers, particularly given the news outlet, whose editors probably had a hard time with it as well…

I spoke with co-writer and co-director Jon Erwin about his film and the NARAL controversy today. As I’ve previously mentioned, Jon and I met in Washington during the March for Life this past January.

If NARAL is vexed by donations being made to pregnancy care centers, which exist solely to help mothers and their preborn children in crisis situations, I expect NARAL will blow a gasket to learn Jon made a generous donation to help sustain this blog, although it came from his personal account.

“We want to support those who are making a difference,” Jon explained (pictured on left, with brother Andy on right). “Yours is a voice that needs to be supported, as do so many others. So we just write checks sporadically to worthy people and projects.”

The Every Life is Beautiful Fund will receive donations from the Erwin brothers when October Baby’s royalties come in. Jon said NARAL’s complaints don’t represent any sort of danger and “just shows we’re hitting a nerve” and also that the film’s intent, to battle apathy, had done its job.

On that vein, I asked Jon if and how October Baby has changed his life.

“I feel like the film moved me from a Republican pro-life pacifist to a pro-life activist,” Jon responded. “There is a whole generation of us who were like that.

“But then I was introduced to the reality of an abortion survivor when I heard Gianna Jessen’s story,” Jon continued. “I did not realize those two words -  abortion survivor – could fit together. They ran me over like a Mac truck.  Then I started studying the issue and decided change is more possible than we think. I think I’ve become a bit of a zealot, but I think that happens to just about everyone who studies the issue of abortion.”

[HT NARAL rant: Chicken Man]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• A female infant in India has died after being beaten by her father:
  
  

  Police arrested her 25-year-old father, Umar Farooq, who relatives alleged tortured the child as he was upset at having a daughter instead of a son.

• Authorities in China allegedly caught a group of people providing illegal gender tests via ultrasound.
• Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas are suing in an attempt to get funds via the Women’s Health Program:
  
  

  The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Austin, asks the court to file a preliminary injunction to stop enforcement of a rule that Texas legislators approved in 2005, denying participation in the program to any clinic affiliated with an abortion provider.

• A ban on abortions after 20 weeks has passed the Arizona House and Senate (the bill also includes other pro-life provisions) and just needs Gov. Jan Brewer’s signature to become law:
  
  

  The proposal increases the current requirement that an ultrasound be performed before an abortion from one hour to 24 hours before. It also requires abortion clinics to post signs providing notice that it’s illegal for anyone to coerce a woman to have an abortion.

  In wording similar to that in the laws of other states with 20-week bans, the Arizona legislation specifies that the state’s ban would start from a point “as determined with reasonable probability by the attending physician.”

by LauraLoo

Meet 2-year-old William Stokkebroe, who is already quite an accomplished dancer.    

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wt824D1Bqg&feature=email[/youtube]

Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.

[HT: Hans Johnson]

That night I tried reading about the procedures, but I kept feeling nauseous. Sophia was now moving regularly, and we were planning a 21-week D&E or induced birth.

Postponing her imminent death was not an option. She would develop more sensory ability to feel pain. We filled out consent forms to have an autopsy and cremation performed on our unborn child.

~ Writer Kimberly Cates Escamilla (pictured) explaining her decision to abort her unborn daughter after being diagnosed with the genetic disorder, Trisomy 13, Huffington Post, April 10

[Photo via Cates Escamilla’s Facebook page]