The last three late-term abortion clinics of what was once was a chain of six in Northern California is closing this week, reports Wynette Sills of 40 Days for Life Sacramento.

Choice Medical Group once committed abortions in Concord, Fremont, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco, and San Jose.

The Salinas clinic closed a few years ago, Concord followed last year, and San Francisco this past March.

When a member of Wynette’s group called the Sacramento office last week, they got a pleasant surprise. A receptionist told her that clinic and the Fremont and San Jose clinics were all closing this week. “We just didn’t have enough patients,” she said, when asked why the clinics were shutting down.

Northern California has undergone a spate of abortion clinic closings.

Recall Golden Gate Community Health closed five clinics in 2011 after an unsuccessful attempt to recover from being cut loose by Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Known then as Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, the affiliate was aborted for financial mismanagement. Also recall PPGG created the now infamous “A Super Hero for Choice” video.

PPGG’s territory was divided between the Planned Parenthood Mar Monte and Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific affiliates.

The downside to this story is that since reorganizing the area, Planned Parenthood has opened six new clinics – one referral (Oakland), three medical abortion (Hayward, Mill Valley, , Ukiah), and two surgical abortion (San Francisco, Santa Rosa).

This, in part or whole, explains why Choice ran its course and went defunct. PP is successfully driving out its abortion competition, although neither of its two surgical abortion mills commit late-term abortion, both stopping at 14 weeks.

The answering machine at the after-hours Choice Group phone number does not give any indication its group is closed. That said, it still provides numbers for the clinics it lists on its website as long defunct.

LeBron is another inductee into the Proud Papa Club. The athlete has gotten tattoos in honor of his sons, LeBron James Jr. and Bryce Maximus, which include their first initials on his triceps and their portraits on his arms.

He also has his mother’s name tattooed on his right shoulder and the word “family” along his rib cage.

~ Elina Bolokhova reporting on Celebrity Dad Tattoos worn by various celebrities, including basketball star LeBron James (pictured), Kobe Bryant, and actor Johnny Depp to name a few, The Dad Project via Parenting, May 16

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Five abortion clinics in the Pittsburgh area have closed since Pennsylvania passed new abortion clinic regulations. Four of the clinics voluntarily shut down, while Stephen Brigham’s American Women Services was closed by the state. Planned Parenthood, always playing the victim, is complaining about the extra business:
  

  Two registered facilities remain in Pittsburgh, records show.

  “There’s just no providers,” [Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania spokeswoman Rebecca] Cavanaugh said.

  More women have flocked to Pittsburgh’s Planned Parenthood since the local closures, causing scheduling problems and later abortions for some, Cavanaugh said.

• A California man has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced to nearly 20 years in jail for killing his girlfriend and unborn child (who, according to this article, was 22 weeks):
  

  A Colfax man who admitted he shot his romantic partner in the back, killing her and their unborn child, will be sentenced to 19 years, 8 months to life.

  That is the plea deal 37-year-old Lee Martin Konnerth [pictured left] reached with Placer County prosecutors in the May 15, 2011 murder of Sarah Lynn Burr and the couple’s baby.

• Daniel Henninger writes in the Wall Street Journal about Gosnell (pictured below right) and America’s current abortion law:
  

  Their verdict is that if a late-term baby is outside the womb and is alive, and if a doctor performs a procedure on the baby that causes it to die, that is murder in Pennsylvania. For which Kermit Gosnell is being spared the death penalty and going to prison for life.

That said, if in some states babies are inside the womb when procedures similar to Gosnell’s are done, that is legal. The piercing and snipping Gosnell performed isn’t something he invented. Later-term abortion isn’t an antiseptic procedure like getting a tooth pulled. It can be a difficult and complicated mess.

Medical science and skilled doctors keep pushing back the time babies can survive birth before they’ve reached full term. Rest assured that any doctor in the U.S. who performs abortions past 20 weeks is looking at the Gosnell verdict and wishing there was more clarity about what falls along the spectrum between a day at the office and first-degree murder.

• The investigation into abortionist Douglas Karpen is receiving local coverage as well as a blip in the New York Times:
  

  Late Wednesday, the Harris County District Attorney’s office confirmed it is investigating allegations reportedly made by the doctor’s former employees.

  This may become another high-profile case with high-profile politicians and political groups already involved. The D.A.’s office acknowledged the allegations are “very similar on the surface” to the case in Philadelphia.

  Here is KHOU’s local coverage video:

[Photos via CBS Sacramento and triblive.com]

By now workers at every late-term abortion clinic in America (and there are way more than four) are buzzing about Kermit Gosnell’s conviction this week of murdering three abortion survivors.

Clinic staff have also likely noticed that four of Gosnell’s employees were swept up into his junk and have pleaded guilty of murder, and four others to lesser charges.

Then yesterday came revelations of another hack who allegedly murdered living babies he had just aborted.

Three former employees of late-term abortionist Douglas Karpen of Houston, Texas, have come forward, with photographic and video evidence that he murdered born babies in heinous ways and also committed abortions far beyond the legal limit..

Those three employees were smart. They got out of the industry as whistleblowers and not as accessories to murder. They are helping bring a sadistic abortionist to justice rather than going down with him.

Gigi Aguilar, Deborah Edge, and Krystal Rodriguez came forward after receiving a postcard from Operation Rescue. The pro-life community has now connected them with attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, who helped them contact authorities in Texas.

Operation Rescue sent a new postcard to every abortion clinic in the U.S. two weeks ago. Click to enlarge…

If you are a clinic worker, have you seen the postcard? If not, your boss likely threw it away.

Seriously consider the fact that if your clinic is involved in illegal late-term abortionists and/or infanticide, it is eventually going to get exposed. Two committees in the U.S. Congress have now launched probes. Who knows if one of your co-workers has already squealed. Troy Newman of OR tells me he has received a tip from one informant already from his new postcard campaign. Was it from your clinic?

You can’t just quit. You’ll still be charged. You have to become a whistleblower. Call 316-683=6790 x155 TODAY.

by Hans Johnson

Actress Margaret Colin, speaking for Feminists For Life, asks Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York why he is supporting legislation that doesn’t require licensed doctors to perform abortions.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3wJftxR398[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Kelli]

In the state of Ohio, fetal homicide is against the law, and “[a]ll of Ohio’s homicide and assault statutes prohibit actions which kill or injure another person’s unborn child at any stage of pregnancy,” which is what Ariel Castro did not once, but five times. Therefore, after the women’s rescue and Castro’s arrest, babies who would otherwise be viewed as non-viable entities, legal to dispose of under the law, are now positioned to become the driving force behind a possible death sentence for Ariel Castro for “aggravated murder.”

Unlike with late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, the media is in way too deep now to ignore Ariel Castro. The initial sensationalism of the story drew the pro-choice media in, thinking they were dealing exclusively with a sexual abuse/bondage/kidnapping case. Now it’s too late to back out, and the story has the potential to inspire a national debate about the inconsistency of a rationale that says murdering a fetus is wrong in some circumstances and perfectly acceptable in others.

~ Jeannie DeAngelis, Jeannie-ology, May 12

[HT: American Thinker; photos via philly.com and vivelohoy.com]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Some thoughts on Gosnell from Ramesh Ponnuru:
  

  The question that should haunt us now is not how many victims Gosnell killed, which we will never know, but how many more Gosnells there are in our country.

• And from Robert George, who I hope is correct:
  

  Late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell has been convicted of first degree murder for killing babies after delivering them alive….But Dr. Gosnell is only the front man; and the real trial has only just begun. The defendant is the abortion license in America.

• National Abortion Federation president Vicki Saporta has an editorial in USA Today which boggles the mind. One would never suspect from reading it that abortionist Kermit Gosnell worked one day a week at a NAF clinic in Delaware. One would never realize that various NAF clinics referred patients to Gosnell. One would never learn that the state of North Carolina recently shut down a NAF clinic because it was an “imminent danger to the health, safety and welfare of the clients.”

Instead, you would be left with the false idea that Gosnell was some lone wolf provider who preyed on women (the same women NAF clinics sent to him), that Pennsylvania’s unenforced abortion restriction led to Gosnell, that no level of restrictions would have stopped Gosnell (umm… how about regular inspections?), that the NAF’s application process is rigorous (so rigorous that a NAF clinic hired Gosnell), and that “women can be assured of receiving high-quality care at NAF member facilities” (except for that just-closed NAF clinic in North Carolina).

• You wouldn’t know it from their press release about abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s conviction and “justice being served,” but NARAL opposes a law Gosnell was convicted of breaking 21 times. That’s right. NARAL opposes Pennsylvania’s late-term abortion ban:
  

  NARAL Pro-Choice America supports the legal framework established in Roe v. Wade and does not oppose restrictions on post-viability abortion so long as they contain adequate exceptions to protect the woman’s life and health. NARAL Pro-Choice America opposes Pennsylvania’s post-viability restriction because the health exception is dangerously narrow. NARAL Pro-Choice America also opposes this law because it is unconstitutional to the extent that it prohibits pre-viability abortion by defining viability at 24 weeks.

Something tells me president Ilyse Hogue (pictured, above right) isn’t going to be noting NARAL’s opposition to Pennsylvania’s post-viability ban on MSNBC anytime soon.

• At LifeSiteNews, Michael New discusses the latest Gallup polling may hold good news for pro-lifers:
  

  Respondents were more likely to describe themselves as “pro-life” rather than “pro-choice” by a 48 to 45 percent margin. Prior to May 2009, the “pro-choice” position was always more popular in Gallup surveys. However, this most recent survey marks the sixth time in the last nine Gallup surveys where respondents were more likely to describe themselves as “pro-life” than “pro-choice.” Overall, this survey contributes to a nice body of evidence that pro-lifers have indeed made long-term gains in the court of public opinion.

[Photos via altwire.utne.com; lifesitenews.com]

Operation Rescue and Life Dynamics have released photos, video, and witness testimony about a late-term abortionist in Houston, Texas, who routinely murders babies in horrendous ways after he aborts them alive.

Three former employees of abortionist Douglas Karpen (pictured below left) have come forward with shocking testimony, which they have corroborated with video and photos.

In the video below Gigi Aguliar, Deborah Edge, and Krystal Rodriguez say Karpen aborts babies beyond the legal limit in Texas of 24 weeks.

The informants also say they witnessed Karpen routinely kill babies after they were born by puncturing the soft spot or impaling the stomach with a sharp instrument, twisting the head off, or puncturing the throat with his finger.

They maintain babies Karpen aborted babies alive and then murdered them “daily.”

[youtube]http://youtu.be/9fhyJItGPko[/youtube]

See graphic photos below taken by informants of two very late-term aborted babies (my guess is ~ 7 months), the first whose throat was punctured and the second whose head was nearly decapitated.

Photos of Babies 1 & 2

The informant, Deborah Edge, told Fox News she came forward after receiving a postcard from OR encouraging clinic employees to contact the group “if they suspected illegal activity at the clinic.”

Working with attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom and Abby Johnson’s group, And Then There Were None, the three informanta submitted affidavits to the Texas Medical Board and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in 2012.

On February 8, 2013, OR received a letter from the TMB stating it was dismissing the case due to “insufficient evidence.”

It was at this point the decision was made to go public.

Ironically, late-term mass murderer Kermit Gosnell’s trial got in the way, and so release of the information was delayed until this week.

The abortion lobby and media have been claiming Kermit Gosnell was an anomaly, while pro-life activists know there are many more just like him. How can it not be that late-term abortionists blur the line between preborn and postborn?

I urge the TMB and AG Abbott to reopen their investigation of Karpen, particularly in light of the fact that the U.S. Congress has now launched a probe into shoddy abortion clinics, late-term abortions, and live birth abortions.

By now Abbott, pictured right, has received a letter from the House Judiciary Committee inquiring how he is enforcing the federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act and how limits on late-term abortions are enforced.

Operation Rescue has many more details on this developing story, including video shot within the clinic.