Life Links 12-12-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- ABC News has a report from Elizabeth Vargas on sex-selection abortion and infanticide in India.
- Hilarious Amanda Marcottequote of the week (my emphasis):
But don’t take my word for it. David Dayen at Firedoglake quoted respected and non-ideological pollster Celinda Lake on the issue:
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said she could “not even remotely” understand the political calculus of the decision, saying it “alienates the base, causes conflict with women in the base, [is] bad for key groups of women like younger women and unmarried women, and doesn’t win the swing independent women.”
It’s one thing to ignorantly claim Celinda Lake is non-ideological. It’s another to say she’s non-ideological and then post a quote in which the author identifies Lake as being a Democratic pollster.
- Newsweek’s The Daily Beast has a long story on Jennie McCormack (pictured left), the woman in Idaho who aborted a later-term pregnancy using RU-486 and then put her dead child in a box on the back porch:
McCormack, who thought she was about 12 weeks along, took the pills (the protocol involves two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol) the afternoon they arrived. The drugs are FDA-approved only for ending early-stage pregnancies; McCormack had no complications, but the pregnancy turned out to be more advanced than she thought — perhaps between 18 and 21 weeks, experts later speculated — and the size of the fetus scared her. She didn’t know what to do — “I was paralyzed,” she says — so she put it in a box on her porch, and, terrified, called a friend. That friend then called his sister, who reported McCormack to the police.
The author, Nancy Hess, includes this absurd claim about fetal pain with no source given:
(Virtually all research on the subject shows that fetuses cannot distinguish pain until as late as the 30th week of gestation.)
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.
The Jennie McCormack case is sad, sad, sad. Again we see why we need a floor on income and a family allowance system.
We also see the result of family fragmentation. We need to resuscitate the nuclear family and perhaps even try to revive the extended family. Women, like men, just can’t do everything on our own. It is really too bad this woman does not have a husband and her 3 kids don’t have a father, or at least father figure, in the home.
Persecuting her is pointless but this overburdened and stressed out woman badly needs many kinds of assistance. So do her 3 children.
If the right supports had been in place, it is likely that either the 4th pregnancy would not have happened or that, if it had, her reaction would have been one of looking forward to having a baby rather than panic and desperation.
Denise, a family floor on income already exists. Its called welfare. Has it stemmed abortion? NO. It hasn’t.
What we need is a return to morality. I wish this lady had had a husband to love her and care for her children. I wish Ms. McCormick had known of CPC’s near her who would have loved her and cared for her and helped her give life to her child.
Instead she will be exploited by a lawyer wanting to make his mark with her case. Meanwhile, she sits with tears in her eyes, depressed and alone in her dark apartment. And her child is dead. She saw that baby. She is a mother to other children. No way she doesn’t think of that baby. The whole situation is tragic. Hopefully someone will reach out to her so she can find healing.
Amanda Marcotte really is funny. She is either a really bad liar, or a highly paid stupid.
What are we to make of this decision by Sebelius? We have not reason to trust her, but it seems that she might be telling the truth: She truly realizes that the heavy doses of contraception hormones in Plan B are probably long-term dangerous to adolescent young women. (Silly Amanda can’t see the danger at all, and so she equates sales of Plan B with the ease of buying condoms, and sees a “double standard.”)
All right… I am ready to give credit where it is due. Sebelius got one right for a good reason: She doesn’t want Plan B sold to adolescents until it is shown to be safe by scientific evaluation. (And that ain’t never gonna happen; I’m a chemist who used to work in pharmaceutical evaluations.)
And Amanda Marcotte can’t see real concern for young girls unless it somehow involves killing younger children.
Sydney M. says:
December 12, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Denise, a family floor on income already exists. Its called welfare. Has it stemmed abortion? NO. It hasn’t.
(Denise) My idea of an income floor isn’t welfare. It would be something like what I have. I get X number of dollars in alimony each month. It is unaffected if I earn money. Welfare decreases if you earn money. It’s not the same thing as an income floor or family allowance.
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(Denise) If that means a return to the nuclear family and perhaps the extended family, I’m with you. This may not have happened had she been in a happy marriage with someone to share the burdens of child rearing.
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(Denise) Crisis Pregnancy Centers might have helped her and averted that fetus in a box horror.
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(Denise) It might be good if she considers a tubal ligation so she doesn’t get pregnant in the future. However, that would influence the possibility of marriage to a man who wanted a wife to have babies so it would have to be factored in.
Jennie McCormack and the fetus in the box. It sounds like it could be the launching for a sad artwork but emotionally powerful artwork.
A relatively uncluttered thread, so let me ask Jill, Chris Arsenault, and other moderators, mechanics, and any “behind the scenes” people – something has changed where now we have 5 minutes versus 15, to edit comments, and also – when I click on “Edit Comment,” a whole different screen opens where the existing text should appear, and there is a “Loading” notice at the bottom left, but it just sits there and doesn’t load, and will eventually time out. Why the change?
I don’t know where I’ve been, but I hadn’t heard the Jennie McCormack story before. It’s just tragic! She put herself in danger by taking RU-486 without any doctor supervision or consultation. And what is happening to her now (no friends, state aid office workers ignoring her) is terrible! There are at least 10 churches in Pocatello, Idaho. They absolutely could help her. I’ll be keeping her and her family in my prayers.