I ended up spending most of yesterday on Twitter, relaying information to and from the Texas State Capitol. There the Senate was debating an omnibus pro-life bill, which eventually passed and is on its way to Governor Rick Perry for his anticipated signature.

The bill includes a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, when babies are known to feel pain, a requirement that abortion clinics upgrade to standards of Ambulatory Surgical Clinics, a requirement that abortion clinics follow FDA guidelines for administering the abortion pill and also that a doctor actually give the pill, and that abortionists have privileges at nearby hospitals.

It all sounds straightforward enough. But abortion proponents, claiming the new law would close all but 5 of the state’s 47 abortion clinics, riled their masses, and the situation became raucous, to say the least.

As the vote drew near, our Students for Life of America group reported being asked by police to hold up in a representative’s office for their own safety….

Here is eery video taken by Stand True’s Bryan Kemper toward the end of the night. It certainly sounds demonic to me…

[youtube]http://youtu.be/v5_velCAmSo[/youtube]

This should come as no surprise. Last week abortion proponents were caught on tape chanting “Hail, satan,” in response to a post-abortive mother’s testimony. This battle is much larger than what we see. Yesterday more blasphemous signs were spotted, so vulgar I can’t print them.  Here’s one I can print but which made me very sad. This girl, pictured with Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, has no idea how lucky she is to be alive….

The people we are dealing with are blind or misled. The spiritual forces we are dealing with are the darkest out there. We must remember to keep the two opponents separate, praying for the first and praying against the second.

Robin Marty of RH Reality Check told me, “I do think there has been a significant shift…. There is a sense that abortion access could be changed forever.”

I think what we saw played out in Texas, including a propensity on the other side to throw feces and urine, is a sense of abortion doom. They realize they’re losing the unfettered freedom to kill preborn children.

Your thoughts on it all?

[Top photo via yahoo.com]

From the Huffington Post, July 12:

Some opponents of the bill reportedly had items such as feminine hygiene products confiscated by state troopers while attempting to enter the state Senate gallery. While these items may have been innocuous, the Department of Public Safety later reported that it had found one jar suspected to contain urine, 18 jars suspected to contain feces, and three bottles suspected to contain paint during their searches. Abortion rights protesters later questioned these reports.

But there’s more, from CNN’s Josh Rubin…

https://twitter.com/CNNExpress/statuses/355795734857134081

[HT for CNN tweet: Hot Air; photo (click to enlarge) via im41.com]

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

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

• Action Alert: Saynsumthn’s Blog reports that some Atlanta area hotels are offering discounts to patients of Atlanta Center for Women’s Choice, which is operated by an indicted doctor who aborts up to 24 weeks gestation. Feel free to contact these businesses to respectfully share your thoughts on the matter.

• Secular Pro-Life blogs about an attack on the free speech of pregnancy resource centers in New York City. NARAL objects to EMC Frontline’s ad (pictured left), calling it “intimidating” and “untruthful.” Not sure what exactly is intimidating or untruthful about the ad, but that hasn’t stopped NARAL pal, NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, from “introduc[ing] federal legislation that would call on the Federal Trade Commission to regulate such ads and prevent advertisers from making what Maloney is calling false promises.” Could the problem be that NARAL just can’t handle the truth?
• At National Review, Michael J. New discusses the latest decision by the Illinois Supreme Court to allow a 1995 law to stand, requiring parental notification before a minor abortion may be performed. He writes:
  

  At least 17 academic studies, analyzing different states, have found that parental-involvement laws reduce minor abortion rates.

• In our last blog buzz, we featured Josh Brahm’s reasons in support of incremental pro-life legislation. Today, The Passionate Pro-Lifer gives her reasons for opposing it:
  

  The babies that have been saved over the past 40 years have not been saved by legislative regulations or incremental abortion bans. They have been saved by faithful counselors calling out to women at the “clinics,” faithful family members and friends holding their loved ones back from the slaughter, and faithful warriors and debaters crying aloud in this culture of death in hopes of changing individual hearts and minds.

• Reflections of a Paralytic is happy to report that Germany is planning a memorial to honor victims of euthanasia under the Third Reich:
  

  Believe it or not, I’ve actually talked to people who think that the Holocaust was just about the extermination of the Jews. As physician assisted suicide of the terminally ill and disabled becomes increasingly more commonly accepted — and practiced — in our country and throughout the world, this is the part of the holocaust that people need much more education on.

• At Reproductive Research Audit, Dr. Rebecca G. Oas shows that the Guttmacher Institute is ignoring Uganda’s anti-abortion, pro-family culture in order to push a flawed agenda of abortion and contraception on the country:
  

  If the Guttmacher Institute or the Center for Reproductive Rights were truly serious about saving women’s lives in Uganda, they would not rely on relatively unsubstantiated (and certainly debatable) numbers on abortion-related maternal mortality simply because they are the highest available estimates. To do so would be to risk underestimating the rates at which other complications occur, like hemorrhage or infection or underlying health problems caused by poor nutrition, such as anemia. Furthermore, promoting access to abortion would do nothing to improve the overall status of health care in Uganda, to say nothing of ensuring access to good roads and bridges that are crucial in ensuring prompt medical attention for everyone, including expectant mothers.

  Ultimately, the focus on Uganda from these pro-abortion groups comes down to one very important fact. As the Guttmacher report helpfully points out in its opening sentence:

  Uganda, a country of nearly 35 million (including 8 million women of reproductive age), has one of the highest rates of population growth in the world.

  And, what’s more, the Ugandan people don’t seem to share Guttmacher’s view that this is a bad thing.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/M_5uhQcyeZk[/youtube]

From WLWT.com:

The group Created Equal played graphic abortion videos on a 9′ x 12′ screen at Fountain Square [in Cincinnati] until 2 p.m.

About two dozen people put up signs showing abortion images, while a truck with similar images drove around the block.

The group intends to hold similar events in other cities, including Cleveland and Columbus.

Click video image below to watch:

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

So today’s the big day, the culmination of recent pro-life efforts in Texas to ban abortions after 20 weeks and enact stricter abortion industry regulations. From the Associated Press:

The Texas Senate was poised to cast a final vote on tough new abortion restrictions after a committee approved the measure Thursday, and top Republicans and Democrats acknowledged there is little to stop it from becoming law this time.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst scheduled the vote for Friday afternoon…. It could be Saturday morning before senators actually cast their votes if debate lingers through the night….

“We do not have the numbers to stop it,” said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. “As soon as it’s signed by the governor, it will be challenged … we believe the whole bill is unconstitutional.”

The Department of Public Safety has more than doubled security at the Capitol and Republican leaders have said they will clear the gallery if anyone tries to disrupt the Senate again….

Meanwhile, the “road rage” bus tour kicked off by angry Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards four days ago is ending tonight with a whimper. Organizers have cancelled the last stop…

In other news, an enlightening July 10 article at The American Prospect sheds light on how the orange shirted mob came to be.

While abortion proponents may claim Gov. Rick Perry’s call for a special session was a “sneak attack,” they knew it was coming – months in advance, and planned the “seemingly spontaneous” crowd.

It also appears the other side had to hire “free agent activists” on social media to stir the lackluster pro-abortion pot. (I’ve been trying to pinpoint whether these are actually paid mercenaries and can’t ascertain it. But the term “free agent” sure makes it sound like it. UPDATE: One of the “free agents” mentioned in this piece tells me she’s not being paid.):

Months before the special session of the Texas legislature was called, the main organizers of the pro-choice protests had already decided that their t-shirts were going to be orange.

By the end of the special session of the Texas State Senate on June 25th, a sea of orange t-shirted pro-choice supporters in the capital’s rotunda were capping off Wendy Davis’ filibuster with 15 minutes of raucous cheering….

Grassroots organizations playing in the same sandbox often behave like rivalrous siblings clamoring for the same donors and public recognition for their efforts. But for the first time in recent memory, according to several activists I spoke with, the local pro-choice groups in Austin played nicely with one another. Their guess is that the threat to access to reproductive health was great enough to put aside their usual differences.

Even with the advanced planning, there weren’t enough orange-shirted protesters to make a difference when the special legislative session began in late May of this year. The protester’s efforts were listless. Something was missing. Every energetic protest effort needs a spark…. The Texas House Committee on Public Affairs’ decision to cut off public testimony with over 700 people in attendance at 4 am on June 21st was the needed catalyst….

But the reach of traditional organizations online tends to be limited to their current supporters. The protest needed more than the unusual suspects to grow significantly. And that’s where the secret ingredient came in: free agent activists. Free agents are individual activists who are savvy using social media and able to accelerate the spread of social protests and movements very quickly. Every successful protest movement over the past five years, from Wall Street to Cairo to Brazil, has had free agents stirring the social media waters and turning local events into national and international conversations.

The final piece of the mosaic was Senator Wendy Davis. She fit the role perfectly with her pink running shoes, compelling personal story and incredible endurance….

It is difficult to sustain the level of energy and enthusiasm the filibuster created. The job of organizations is to fill the quieter times with more field building and relationship building online in order to turn once again into a well-organized crowd seemingly spontaneously again.

[Top photo via Stand with Texas Women; bottom photo via DallasNews.com]

Jessica Grose… asserts that the way to energize, and gain momentum for, the abortion-rights movement is to trot out “blithe” abortion stories….

Ms. Grose, those essays don’t get mainstream play because they’d make most people angry and very unsympathetic.

“I want the baby dead because f*** this baby” isn’t going to win friends.

~ Blogger Christina Dunigan reacting to Slate writer and past editor of Jezebel, Jessica Grose’s (pictured) lamentation about the lack of uplifting, “unapologetic” abortion stories, Real Choice, July 11

[HT: Kel]

[Photo via sheknows.com]

When even the Huffington Post turns against you, where is an abortion supporter to go? From HuffPo, today:

Most Americans would favor sweeping new national restrictions on abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. But the poll also shows many Americans remain conflicted in their views on abortion.

By a margin of 59% to 30%, respondents to the new poll said they would favor a federal law banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Noted David Freddoso at ConservativeIntel.com:

There it is, in black and white – 59% support the ban. This more or less confirms the result of other polls. It’s also worth noting that among people who gave otherwise ambiguous or conflicted answers about the abortion issue, 70% supported the ban.

This is pretty simple stuff — late-term abortion is barbaric, a large majority of Americans agree, including many who don’t oppose all or even most abortions in principle.

What I find fascinating about this debate is that the pro-choice side is on a suicide mission to reclaim ground that’s probably lost for good. They got themselves a winning position when they stopped talking about abortion and started talking about contraception during the 2012 election. They had a won game, rhetorically speaking, and could stop retreating there.

But now the Gosnell trial provided an impetus for new regulations on late-term abortions, and they’ve been lured forward again. We’re not longer talking about birth control pills anymore – we’re talking about skull-crushing, bone-crunching abortions of babies in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy. Good luck defending that.

About as bad for the other side is that a total of 47% of respondents said abortion should be “generally” or “always” illegal, as opposed to 46% who thought it should be “generally” or “always” legal. In total, 74% supported some sort of abortion restrictions. HuffPo again:

Nineteen percent said they think abortion should always be legal, while 27% said it should be generally legal, but with some restrictions. Another 17%  said that abortion should always be illegal, while 30% said it should be generally illegal, except in special circumstances.

More bad news for the other side: 43% of those polled thought current abortion restrictions weren’t strict enough, as opposed to only 20% who thought they were too strict and 17% who thought they were just right.

I should note that despite the overwhelming belief that there should at least be some to many restrictions on abortion, if not an outright ban, only 26% thought the government “has a right and obligation to pass restrictions on abortion,” leaving me to wonder who in the world they think should enact the restrictions they support.

See poll results here.

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• At National Review, Michael J. New discusses an increase in pro-life sentiment:
  

  Three separate surveys by Rasmussen, Gallup, and NBC/Wall Street Journal show that support for the pro-life position has increased anywhere from four to eight percentage points since January.

• PolitiFact Ohio gives Rachel Maddow a “pants on fire” rating for her recent comments about a pro-life ultrasound law in Ohio:
  

  In interpreting some of the budget’s more-ambiguous abortion language, Maddow contended that the new regulations included a “mandatory vaginal probe at the insistence of the state.”…

  In other words, not only are external methods such as transabdominal ultrasounds allowed under the new law; they are required. That sinks Maddow’s claim of a “mandatory vaginal probe.”

  We reached out to MSNBC and asked representatives if Maddow had anything more to say, but we did not hear back from them.

• The New York Times has a long article on abortionist Stephen Brigham, his abortion caravans, and how Maryland regulates abortion clinics:
  

  Dr. Brigham, who was not licensed to practice in Maryland, had not even been required to notify the state health department when he set up the Elkton center to complete late-term abortions, after about the 14th week of pregnancy. He initiated the procedures in New Jersey, where he was not authorized to perform them, then led his startled patients to Maryland, where the abortions were completed….

  As he had with dozens of other patients over the previous months, Dr. Brigham began the young woman’s procedure at his clinic in Voorhees Township, N.J., initiating the cervical dilation of the woman, who was 21.5 weeks pregnant, and using a standard injection to kill the fetus.

  The next morning, he led the puzzled patient, her mother and boyfriend, along with two other patients, in a car caravan 60 miles south, across Delaware, to the clinic in an unlabeled suite in Elkton. There, Dr. Brigham advised Dr. Nicola I. Riley, who had a Maryland license but limited experience in late-term abortions, as she administered anesthesia and began extracting the fetus. “It seemed like he was training her,” the patient later testified.

  Soon, Dr. Riley testified, she realized that she was tugging not on the fetus but on intestinal tissue, indicating a potentially life-threatening perforation of the patient’s uterus and damaged bowel.

[Brigham/Riley photo via eurweb.com]