by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• A judge in Iowa has upheld the ban on telemed/Skype abortions in the state:
  

  The judge wrote that the medical board has significant authority to regulate such issues. “There is no question that the board has the power to establish standards of practice for the medical profession. Those standards include the authority to adopt and enforce standards regarding the minimal standards of acceptable and prevailing practice,” he wrote.

  The system has remained in use while the two sides wrangled in court. The judge’s ruling is set to take effect in 30 days. A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman said her agency would file a legal appeal.

An August 15 op ed in the Washington Post makes the case that a common depiction of abortion by proponents plays right into pro-life hands.

Janet Harris, former communications director for the pro-abortion group EMILY’s List, cites several reasons why calling abortion a “difficult decision” cedes ground. She also posits the first clear reason I’ve read why “pro-choice” is problematic:

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

• At Coming Home, Dr. Gerard Nadal details the perfect storm swirling in Australia (as well as the United States) where empirical evidence on the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link is confronted with an ideology which seeks to suppress the data:
  Melbye, Brinton, and the rest of the NCI coterie deny the validity of their own data (as well as data from all over the globe), data that time and time again substantiate the ABC link. Their sole reason for denying the data in case-control studies (which are retrospective analyses) is the assertion that women who have had induced abortions are more likely to recall them, or report them if they have breast cancer. Dr. Janet Daling who included in one of her studies a test of this putative bias, studied women with cervical cancer and found absolutely no recall bias in her cases or controls. That makes sense because nearly all cervical cancers are caused by human papilloma virus. Janet Daling also publishes with the deniers….

  The issue is the legality of induced abortion and what the frightening specter of breast cancer fifteen or twenty years later might mean. In other words, it’s scientists denying scientific data because of a political agenda.

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

• Culture Campaign reports on a new study from Northwestern University which “compar[ed] the birth rates of abortion advocates to the rest of Americans” and “conclude[d] that the shift in public opinion from pro-choice to pro-life since Roe v. Wade is the result of a demographic shift: Pro-abortion women don’t have as many children, or perhaps none.”

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Roe v Wade in January 2013, Time magazine published a surprising and iconic cover story about how the pro-choice side has been losing ever since it thought it won in 1973. The reasons Time listed were spot on:

1. Pro-life laws
2. Public sentiment
3. Pro-abortion generational in-fighting
4. Playing defense (defending the status quo)
5. Science
6. Stigma
7. Aging abortionists

Indeed, abortion advocates have been in an admitted state of panic for quite some time over building pro-life momentum.

But within the past several days two abortion advocates have separately admitted their side is losing…

by Kelli Both Democrats and Republicans use adverse Supreme Court rulings to rally their respective bases, but lawmakers have a responsibility not to succumb to overheated and inaccurate rhetoric…. The Fact Checker generally does not award Pinocchios for “misspeaking” or for statements of opinion. And we obviously take no position on the Supreme Court opinion. […]

by Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• At Life Training Institute, Clinton Wilcox addresses the controversy surrounding Marco Rubio’s recent assertion that life at conception is “settled science.” The Washington Post decided to do a “fact check” on Rubio’s claim – or did they? Wilcox writes:
  

  In order to “look at the science” on the abortion issue, Philip Bump, the author of the Washington Post article, reached out to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. This was the statement they returned to him: “Government agencies and American medical organizations agree that the scientific definition of pregnancy and the legal definition of pregnancy are the same: pregnancy begins upon the implantation of a fertilized egg into the lining of a woman’s uterus. This typically takes place, if at all, between 5 and 9 days after fertilization of the egg — which itself can take place over the course of several days following sexual intercourse.”

On April 28 NARAL made a media splash by claiming it had gotten Google to remove a large number of ”deceptive ads from anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers.”

And those “deceptions,” if true, were major whoppers.

From the Washington Post: