Life Links 1-16-12
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- The Northern Illinois Women’s Center abortion clinic in Rockford will be closed permanently. This is after the clinic had done a variety of tasks required to meet health regulations including plans to hire an abortionist with surgical privileges at an in-state hospital:
According to an email sent to the Rockford Register Star, the clinic’s owners have decided to voluntarily shut their doors for good.
Clinic officials state their decision is based on lack of support from the community, the political climate surrounding the abortion issue and the challenge the clinic would face in rebuilding staff.
- The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the immediate enforcement of Texas’ ultrasound law:
… [O]n Thursday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked the appeals court to make its decision effective immediately, shortening the 22-day waiting period typically required under the court’s rules. The appeals court granted the request in a one-sentence order less than a day later….
The Texas Department of State Health Services expected to implement its enforcement plan in the coming weeks, spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. The department was finalizing its notification letters that it will send to abortion facilities and inspectors, Williams said.
- Overheard: George Berkin in NJ Voices on the Texas ultrasound law and its detractors:
First, Planned Parenthood’s response shows just how empty the “pro-choice” rhetoric really is. In our everyday experience, more information makes for greater freedom of choice. Should I attend Rutgers or Montclair State? As I consider my options, I want as much information as possible about academic offerings, costs, social life, etc.
Deciding what to do when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, unlike choosing which school to attend, is fraught with moral consequences as I consider each option. But that moral dimension should make it more important to be fully informed about each possible choice, not less important.
- Amanda Marcotte is really off her rocker. She think that if Griswold v. Connecticut is overturned, she could see “conservative states passing laws requiring you to be married (to get contraceptives) or some such nonsense.” No states are mentioned nor any legislators in such a state who would support such a law.
Later, she shows why she continuously struggles to form anything resembling a reasonable argument:
Santorum is trying to argue basically that contraception somehow causes out-of-wedlock births – man, I hate that term – because it lets people think they can have sex and then they get pregnant. Luckily for us, we actually have data to disprove this argument, and not just common sense. The record high for teen pregnancy was not 1966, the year after Griswold was decided. Nor was it after condoms became ubiquitous in the 80s and 90s. It was actually in 1958, when it was twice as high as it is now. True, there were a lot of shotgun marriages back then, but so what? The difference is not in contraception use, but in mores regarding marriage and pregnancy.
Teen pregnancy doesn’t equal out-of-wedlock births, especially in 1958. People got married and started having children at a much earlier age in the 1950’s. In 1950 and 1960, the median age of first marriage for women was 20.3 years. That means a little less than half of the women getting married were doing so in their teens. Unsurprisingly, a higher number of women being teens when married leads to a higher number of teen pregnancies. Teen pregnancy numbers weren’t high in the late fifties because a bunch of unmarried teens were having unplanned pregnancies nor was it because of “shotgun marriages.” It was because a bunch of married women who were teenagers were having planned pregnancies.
Interestingly, Marcotte never seems to think that easier access to contraceptives may have played a role in changing society’s mores on sex, marriage and pregnancy.
[Photo via wingright.org]
First twho stories: GOOD, Good news!
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“Interestingly, Marcotte never seem to think….”
No, that isn’t interesting. That’s normal.
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Rockford’s nasty mill is closed for good! YAY!
Unfortunately that explains why NWIC owner/abortionist Dennis Christensen is being seen again, skulking around Madison’s Planned Parenthood site.
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The Texas Ultrasound Law is amazing. I bet a lot of people currenlty think that women who are about to have abortions are informed and are given ultrasound information. PP response and opposition to these laws is disgusting and there is nothing pro-woman about their opposition to these type of laws. There is nothing wrong with giving women information.
Where are the pro-choicers who visits this website. Why don’t they try to justify these actions by PP?
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The article at rrstar regarding the Rockford abortion clinic closing gives an interesting timeline at the bottom. They left off the time that the clinic owner came out with a chainsaw and used it to try to drown out the pro-lifers.
http://prolifecorner.com/node/365
Or the time a man entered the clinic with a gun, first threatening the prolifers with it. Then the clinic owner came out to further try to intimidate them.
I wonder why the repeated crazy antics of the owner don’t appear anywhere in the timeline. ;-p
I just love that the quote from the city Legal Director makes clear why police presence was often required at the clinic: “The city has always been committed to make certain during the operation of the clinic that residents wanting to express their First Amendment rights are safe and free to do so,” said city Legal Director Patrick Hayes. “And that has taken quite a bit of resources. … But the city looks as one of its central roles to be present and ensure safety when required. Certain activities require that kind of allocation of resource.”
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“Interestingly, Marcotte never seems to think that easier access to contraceptives may have played a role in changing society’s mores on sex, marriage and pregnancy.”
If that is the case, then it’s one of the strongest arguments in favor of legal, easily accessible contraception that I have yet seen–it would, after all, mean that as a direct consequence of landmark cases like Griswold, fewer teenagers are becoming parents and entering into permanent, life-long relationships at an age when they are still developing, mentally and physically. Unless, of course, you think teenagers should be getting married and having kids at ages when they themselves are still essentially children. Does anyone here want to take up that position?
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marcotte wants to be a man. she wants women to be men. she is the pure definition of mysogyny. she values animals over kids and women. i mean look at the poor dolt. what on earth does she even have going for her?
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One thing that is strange about Politics is the ifluence that money has on the process and then ultimately on public policy. Not to sound woefully naive or like an anti-capiltalist but it is depressing to realize that the rich can buy elections. If the other candidates drop out of the race due to lack of funding, doesn’t that mean that Mitch “bought” the nomination?
Also what is to prevent a Democrat from supporting a candidate or asuperpac of a Candidate that he believes will be the easiest nominee for Obame to beat?
IMO Mr. Santorum’s plan is a plan focused on the people, on the little guys and gals. He will get big business to support his plan by showing them that when they commit to investing in the American Public they will generate a handsome return.
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Unless, of course, you think teenagers should be getting married and having kids at ages when they themselves are still essentially children. Does anyone here want to take up that position? Joan, it’s fairly obvious that really young teens should not marry. But the whole idea that at 18 you are inherently too immature is marry is ludicrous.
My mother got married at 18. She didn’t actually have kids right away, because right after the honeymoon, Dad had to take an Air Force posting in the wilds of Labrador where she couldn’t follow him. They were only able to take up married life a year later, and eventually had 10 children, 9 still living.
I do not see in any way that she was emotionally stunted or not allowed to grow up because of this, or that her immaturity harmed her children. She was the product of a broken home and had already helped raise her three younger sisters and baby brother while her mom worked. She was prepared for marriage because of her experiences, and because people in those days believed that teenagers could and would be mature enough to handle responsibilities. She also taught us kids those responsibilities, just as her mother and her grandmother and all her pioneer ancestors had. One of her sisters got married at 16 and also raised a family.
I think the only bad aspect of Mom’s life for her was that she missed the chance to go to college when she was young. She worked, though, in a jewelry story for some years to help support us. She took college extension courses when her kids were grown. Oh, and she and Dad will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary next year and are hugely enjoying their grandchildren. Many young women who are concentrating solely on their college degrees and their executive careers still come home at night to empty homes. They don’t have a tenth of what Mom has.
Young people will generally produce what is expected of them. Giving them responsibilities and expecting them to fulfill them is the way to train them for adulthood. Today we indulge and pamper kids and worry whether they are “mature” enough at 25 or 30 to marry. Men of 40 still have to “find themselves” before they think of settling down. With the result that many adults are allergic to responsibility and aren’t marrying and having any children children at all. Our population is shrinking and no one is going to be left to care for the aged. There is definitely a lot to be said for the good old days.
Today young women have much greater opportunities and there is no reason they can’t have an early marriage, children and college combined. That is, if society is really interested in supporting women with children furthering their education. Most college campuses simply aren’t. The only ones who seem to be doing much to ensure they have the opportunity to do this are the Feminists for life.
Marcotte’s feminism, on the other hand, appears to be doing little but rotting her brain. (It certainly doesn’t seem to have made her look any happier in her photos).
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In the general election Mr. Obama will not have to hold back his attack on Romney’s Bain relationship since he will not have to worry about sounding anti-capitalistic like the GOP candidates need to worry about.
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Rockford is another in a long list of substandard, back alley abortion type facilities that unfortunately took decades to close. The reason it took decades was because of strong political support for the abortion industry from liberal elites with the backing of pro-choice constituencies preventing meaningful intervention. Better that we have substandard facilities than no facilities was the unspoken rallying cry for the proaborts. Our president was a principal spokesman for that neanderthal type thinking when as a senator in the Illinois legislature he prevented legislation that would have provided medical treatment for children born alive in the course of an abortion. He stated that providing such an option would effectuate the undermining of abortion rights. Of course Jill Stanek was at the center of the firestorm in this epic battle for years and was instrumental in getting federal legislation passed in the form of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
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Yes, Joan. I will.
When a society is as materially well off as Americans in the 70’s and 80’s. adolescence got longer. Contrast that with the 1890’s for example: life was harder, life expectancy was shorter, and people had more children at a younger age. Today’s teens are physically mature enough to be parents, but they aren’t emotionally mature. Who’s fault is that? It’s not the babies’ so they should not have to die for it. If teens make babies, those babies should have as much chance to live and breath as their teenage mothers. Both. Equal.
If we taught teens basic biology, instead of a sales pitch about ‘safe sex’ that leads to greater prosperity only for Planned Parenthood, a lot of teen maturity issues would take care of themselves. Just sayin.
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For centuries, young girls were raised to maturity and ready to marry at 16 to 20.
“Teenagers” — that is, sexually mature yet still emotionally children — were not invented until public education became widespread…. around the 1940’s. Even then, girls dated in high school in order to find a spouse to marry after high school. (My mother was 19 in 1959 when she married; I was born a year and 15 days later.)
Teenaged girls now are more sexually active and less emotionally ready. They do not date to discern for marriage, or even think about it. They date for hook-ups. And our schools do not teach them family life-skills; we teach them about “safe sex.”
Nobody is happier except the abortion industry.
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Hi Del,
For centuries the human lifespan was also much briefer and people seldom died of old age, which would have been around 40-50 years old. Early marriage and serial reproduction was necessary to guarantee that any child(ren) survived to maturity.
Young girls were married off at puberty. They married older men as these were men who could support and provide for a wife and family. There was no real “adolescence”. It was expected they would likely die in childbirth. Just one of life’s many risks.
I am convinced that many of the women of the Bible who conceived in “older age” were likely in their late 20s or early 30s, which by those cultural standards, was when most women were becoming grandmothers, assuming they had even survived.
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Hey, hey, hey . . .
Another one bites the dust . . .
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“But the whole idea that at 18 you are inherently too immature is marry is ludicrous.”
Just to be clear, I did not say that all teenagers are too emotionally immature to marry. Some teenagers are very mature for their age, of course. However, the brain continues development well into legal adulthood (around age 25), so from a mental standpoint, a person who is in their late teens or even early twenties is still underdeveloped. That doesn’t mean that they can’t act responsibly or think for themselves, it simply means that their personal judgment is still incomplete and they may not be able to fully appreciate the ramifications of big decisions such as marriage and parenthood that will effect them for the rest of their lives.
“For centuries, young girls were raised to maturity and ready to marry at 16 to 20.”
Why stop there? For centuries, even younger girls (12-16) were raised to “maturity” and “ready” to marry. Young boys of similar ages were deemed “ready” to pick up a rifle and go to war. Today, these children are recognized for what they are and allowed to (mostly) finish growing up before they’re pushed into those roles. Which ties back into my original point in this thread: if, as it was suggested, easily accessible contraception played a significant part in this social development, then it has demonstrably done more good than harm and Jill Stanek has presented a persuasive argument in favor of contraception rather than against it.
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However, the brain continues development well into legal adulthood (around age 25), so from a mental standpoint, a person who is in their late teens or even early twenties is still underdeveloped. That doesn’t mean that they can’t act responsibly or think for themselves, it simply means that their personal judgment is still incomplete and they may not be able to fully appreciate the ramifications of big decisions such as marriage and parenthood that will effect them for the rest of their lives.
Gee, joan, if women really aren’t able to understands the ramifications of big decisions about parenthood until they’re 25, then maybe they aren’t mature enough to make a decision about abortion until then?
Unlike Planned Parenthood, who thinks any 13-year-old is capable of understanding and making this decision?
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