Jivin J’s Life Links 3-30-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- MI Attorney General Bill Schuette has moved to close an abortion clinic in Lathrup Village which has allegedly been violating state law by performing abortions without a surgical license:
Dr. Alberto Hodari, operator of WomanCare of Southfield, is accused by the MI Dept. of Community Health of continuing to perform surgical abortions after deciding not to renew that license in July 2010. In 2009, MDCH inspectors found a fire-code violation involving emergency exits at the facility on Southfield Road, according to court documents.
In the documents, Hodari said he was trying to sell the building and the repairs would cut into examination space. He said he would not renew his surgical license when it expired in July 2010….
State law requires a surgical license if patient load for abortions exceeds 50% of total patient load. Hodari indicated he would reduce his surgery load to comply.
Despite statistics provided to MDCH by a clinic manager, the Attorney General’s Office said it doesn’t believe Hodari did so, and will appear in Oakland County Circuit Court on April 6 to ask that the clinic be closed for the duration of the lawsuit.
See more background on Hodari here.
- I’d never heard of Ellen McCormack before today but her obituary in the New York Times describes her as an “Anti-Abortion Presidential Candidate.”:
Mrs. McCormack initially ran for the presidency to help focus national attention on abortion after the 1973 Supreme Court decision recognizing women’s right to the procedure. Her television commercials, partly paid for with federal campaign money, attacked abortion as the equivalent of murder….
In 1976, Mrs. McCormack, who ran as a Democrat and campaigned almost solely on the abortion issue, raised a total of $525,580 in contributions of $250 orhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif less from 20 states. That made her eligible for $247,220.37 in federal matching money for the primaries. The money went mainly for anti-abortion television commercials.
Mrs. McCormack won 238,000 votes in 18 Democratic primaries, and 22 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention.
- A pro-life billboard campaign which uses an image of President Obama is drawing the ire of pro-choicers in Chicago:
Abortion-rights campaigners clashed with Always Life, the Texas-based anti-abortion group that plans to install 30 billboards across the South Side to draw attention to the disparity in the number of black women seeking abortions….
Protesters Tuesday tried to drown out the campaign’s Chicago launch at an empty lot at 58th and State, heckling speakers and shouting that the campaign misappropriates an African-American icon and does nothing to offer desperate women alternatives or to help them raise their children.
[Photo of McCormack via NYDailyNews.com]
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.
I’m not sure how I feel about the posters that talk about abortion and African Americans. On the plus side, it’s nice that people of color get acknowledged in this debate (Hispanics and Asian Americans need some representation, too!). But, unfortunately, these posters don’t mention why abortion is higher in African American women. It doesn’t mentnion “white privilege,” as it’s called. There’s no mention of poverty or lower standards of living- things that badly need to change. They just point the finger and accuse people of genocide. I think of them as emotional and not rational.
So I find them dishonest, but this is just the rub about the pro-choice groups that oppose them: “You don’t do anything for women to keep their babies!” And when pro-life groups do do things to help women keep their babies, they are accused of manipulating poor, simple-minded women who are too easily confused by pregnancy centers stuffed full of diapers to think clearly. So it would appear that pro-lifers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Oy- what a tangled mess we’ve made of ourselves…
o.O
Vannah,
These posters uncover the reality that Planned Parenthood intentionally targets lower-income groups. Planned Parenthood makes a point of putting abortuaries in neighborhoods with high African-American populaces. They make a point of marketing their services to African-American women.
Billboards need by nature to be simple. You want a whole debate and rationale presented to drivers on the interstate? I think that unwise. The website it mentions is a good start, although I would agree that it needs more. Representation of more nationalities, discussion about the whys and why nots of abortion, etc. It does provide help resources which I think absolutely is the most important thing we can do at this time. Make sure women have better options! :)
Vannah,
Have you watched Maafa21 yet? It will remove any doubts you have about PP’s “plan” for the African American community.
http://www.maafa21.com/
I will buy you one and send it to you if you are interested.
carla@jillstanek.com
You go, Carla! :-D
I would feel a lot better about these billboards coming into my city & neighborhood and other people of color majority areas if they were accompanied by a truly serious, enduring effort to get at the root causes of abortion in racial-minority communities.
In fact, I have sent Life Always a letter as a community member concerned about women of color who feel scapegoated and blamed by these billboards.
Offering pregnancy support to individual women and babies after conception has taken place-that’s essential, yes, but it’s only part of what’s needed.
Yes, eugenics survives in US culture, but these campaigns do not get at the fact that the very things sending women of color into abortion clinics at higher rates are themselves thoroughly eugenic and lifetaking.
Nor do these campaigns seem to recognize that these eugenic practices would be in place quite aside from the question of whether abortion clinics deliberately target women of color…and would still be causing many unintended pregnancies, abortions, and cases of inhumanely unsupported parenthood.
I’m speaking of institutionalized racism and poverty, structural poverty and unemployment, constricted educational & job opportunities, the denial of basic health care services like *voluntary* family planning and prenatal care, family and community violence, terrible yet unaffordable housing, the ruthless branding of men of color as criminals and women of color as sexually and reproductively feckless, irresponsible….
Campaigns like that of Life Always need to put all these pieces already. If any campaign members already do, then why don’t they put that vision at the center of the campaign rather than leaving it unspoken or glossed over?
MaryRose,
Knowledge is power!! :)
Marysia,
Have you seen Maafa21 yet? It will remove all of your doubts etc.
See above link.
I will buy you a copy as well and send it to you.
Carla,
That is a very sweet offer. :)
But I can’t allow you to do that. I will check out their sources this weekend. :)
It would be my pleasure of course!!
You can still email me!! :)
I’d be willing to bet that Black women in conservative areas have fewer abortions than their liberal counterparts.
I think it’s cool that she ran as a Democrat.
Carla, thank you, but I have already seen Maafa 21. And I’ve thoroughly researched and written and published on Black history and eugenics.
Some guy-women of all races probably have higher abortion rates in *conservative* places, because these are the very places where women’s right to abortion-reducing services is not respected and supported, except in the form of sporadic acts of individual charity that are necessary but do not get to the root of the problem.
The US as a whole-a very conservative country in the world picture-has a much higher abortion rate than countries that are committed to providing voluntary family planning, paid family leave, and other abortion-reducing measures.
Also, while some people who identify as conservative do individually love and support women who face crisis pregnancies–others are quite viscious. I have known so many women who were ostracized and slut-shamed by families and churches and other communities that boasted of their “great family values.” This remains a major cause of abortion.
But the abortion debate in the US deals with none of these contradictions. And so our very high abortion rate continues without relief.
No, women do not have higher abortion rates in conservative areas. If you were to look at state data compiled by Guttmacher, you would find that the states with the highest abortion rates are in the northeast and west coast, both areas of which are typically liberal leaning and reliable Democratic votes, while states in the south and midwest have, which are conservative leaning and reliable Republican votes, have far lower abortion rates. The U.S. as a whole has a high abortion rate because of liberal leaning states with disproportionately high abortion rates (i.e., NY, NJ, DE, ME, Ca, etc.). If you were to get past all the smoke screens and red herrings pro-choicers throw around and look at the facts, you’d find that where pro-choicers or pro-choice sentiment dominates, the abortion rate is also higher.
Once upon a time, Americans drank tap water or well water when they were thirsty. Decades later, we’ve got a nation addicted to soft drinks. Why? Marketing.
Once upon a time, American women would talk to their doctors about pregnancy. Now, doctors, if consulted, often refer for abortions. Now many women refer themselves, going to mills to kill their children often outside their regular health care network of providers. Why? Marketing.
Bernarnd Nathanson wrote two excellent books on the subject: Aborting America and The Hand of God. Since he was one of NARAL’s founding members and an early leader in the abortion industry, you can hardly call him biased. Though he became pro-life later, he did not white-wash his involvement in the abortion industry.