One of many complaints abortion supporters have against clinic regulations, which they call TRAP laws – Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers – is a requirement for wider doors and hallways than clinics apparently usually have.

“At no point does the width of doorways have any bearing on the medical treatment that’s being administered,” griped Planned Parenthood of Indiana Executive Director Betty Cockrum to jconline.com.

“Abortion proponents mocked the idea that the architectural standards would actually translate into better health care,” noted the Washington Post.

RH Reality Check’s Robin Marty listed “the size of doorways” as one of several “onerous new regulations” in Virginia.

NARAL Virginia’s deputy director agreed, grumbling that the real agenda behind mandating wider halls and doors was “restricting safe, legal abortion access,” according to MSNBC.

SocialistWorker.org protested that “larger hallways and doorways… serve no apparent medical purpose – nor do they make any logical sense.”

You could try telling all that to Kermit Gosnell’s patient Karnamaya Mongar, except she’s dead, in part due to the inability of paramedics to negotiate the halls. According to the grand jury report:

[T]here might have been some slim hope of reviving Mrs. Mongar. The paramedics were able to generate a weak pulse. But, because of the cluttered hallways and the padlocked emergency door, it took them over twenty minutes just to find a way to get her out of the building.

She wasn’t the only one. When Gosnell’s clinic was raided three months later:

Ambulances were summoned to pick up the waiting patients, but… emergency personnel… discovered they could not maneuver stretchers through the building’s narrow hallways to reach the patients….

Access from procedure rooms to the outside by wheelchair or stretcher was impossible, as was evident the night Karnamaya Mongar died….

Clinics must have doors, elevators, and other passages adequate to allow stretcher-borne patients to be carried to a street-level exit. Gosnell’s clinic, with its narrow, twisted passageways, could not accommodate a stretcher at all.

So, you see, the reason behind mandating that doorways and halls be 36 inches wide is to allow for gurney access. This doesn’t seem to me to be too much to ask of abortion providers, particularly since they say they are so concerned about “safe and legal” abortions. Some clinic regs go further to mandate that hallways be five feet wide, but this is simply to allow for simultaneous passage of two gurneys, which doesn’t seem too much to ask either.

To be fair, all the aforementioned complaints were lodged before the Gosnell story started to get traction, when Kirsten Powers’ USA Today column was published.

So you would think after all the notoriety abortion proponents would back away from protesting common sense safeguards that might have saved Mongar’s life. But no. I was shocked by a frankly ignorant tweet last night by RH Reality Check’s Editor-in-Chief, Jodi Jacobson, in response to my question:

Really? I hardly know where to begin. Jodi apparently thinks legalization has made abortion so safe it is utterly impervious to human error or frailty.

But Jodi did qualify herself the word, “most,” meaning she acknowledges there may be medical emergencies at a few clinics, but she’s willing to roll the dice with women’s lives for the sake of access.

Like at the abortion industry standard bearer, Planned Parenthood?

Well, after Operation Rescue compiled the following video last October of 14 emergency calls to PPs across the country since January 2011, there have been a whopping 13 more, recorded at PPs in Colorado (x2), Delaware x5, Indiana, Missouri (same clinic 3x since Thanksgiving – make that 4), and New York, for a total of 27…

[youtube]http://youtu.be/jtpy6WU5xNM[/youtube]

… and that’s just at Planned Parenthoods, which comprise 25% of freestanding abortion clinics in the U.S.

But Jacobson isn’t alone. Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL, complained in a piece blaming pro-lifers for Gosnell that the very state hosting his “House of Horrors,” as it’s now known, Pennsylvania, had enacted “volumes of costly regulations… designed to regulate abortion care right out of existence.”

This makes no sense.  Gosnell would have been one of the abortion clinics regulated out of existence had state agencies or the National Abortion Federation bothered.

Don’t these people want that?

Obviously, no.

[Top photo, taken in January 2012, is of an ambulance crew having to hand-carry an emergency victim from New Woman All Woman abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, because the mill could not accommodate a gurney.]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• The Florida House has passed their born alive legislation with a 119-0 vote:
  

  Temporarily setting aside debate over the legality of abortion, the Florida House unanimously passed a measure Wednesday that would require doctors to provide emergency care if a failed abortion somehow produces an infant who is born alive.HB 1129, sponsored by Avon Park Republican Rep. Cary Pigman, passed 119-0. Along with requiring that doctors provide care, the bill requires that cases of live births following an abortion attempt be reported.

• Meanwhile, RH RealityCheck’s Robin Marty calls an infant who is born alive after a failed abortion a “fetus”:
  

  The “Planned Parenthood infanticide” faux-scandal Blackburn evokes refers to a debate on the floor for a recent bill in Florida where the legislature proposed “aid” to any fetus “born alive after a botched abortion.”The legislation is titled, “Infants Born Alive” and I don’t see the term “fetus” anywhere in the text yet Marty’s years as an abortion advocate must compel her to use the term “fetus” to describe infants who survive abortion.

• Some have portrayed Kermit Gosnell as a predator who lured women to his clinic with low prices. Gosnell’s defense will attempt to paint a different portrait. During testimony yesterday, a former employee notes that sometimes Gosnell would perform abortions without being paid:
  

  Lewis also acknowledged during cross-examination that Gosnell would go ahead with abortions even if the patient did not have enough money, and many patients never returned to pay their bills.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer has an editorial by Father Frank Pavone (pictured left):
  

  Kermit Gosnell has been accused of “snipping” the spinal cords of babies born alive in his Philadelphia abortion clinic. Is such behavior crazy, or does it simply follow the logic of an industry that believes the mother’s choice overrides any right to protection that the baby has?

Now I’m not saying Gosnell, if found guilty, shouldn’t be held accountable for the eight murders he is charged with. But I am suggesting that a certain set of presumptions has been created by our public policies on abortion and the arguments made to justify these policies. If we are horrified by what happened at Gosnell’s clinic, we have to examine what that connection might be.

Statistics from the Guttmacher Institute show that, in the United States, about 18,000 abortions occur annually – and legally – at 21 weeks of pregnancy and beyond. These are babies the size of a large banana.

• At Catholic Vote, Michael J. New describes the continued media blackout on abortion misconduct, listing examples like abortionist LeRoy Carhart’s negligence – resulting in the death of Jennifer Morbelli – as well as Live Action’s Planned Parenthood stings.

[Photo via DesOrmeaux Foundation]

by LauraLoo

WARNING: Profanity.

As posted on Campus Reform:

A professor at a New York public university was arrested this past Monday after cursing out a pro-life display which was set up by conservative activists on campus.

The incident, which was captured in its entirety on camera and posted to YouTube  Monday, depicts SUNY at Buffalo adjunct-instructor Laura Curry repeatedly cursing at police officers and activists in an emotional altercation near a display of graphic photos of aborted babies.

“But that isn’t profane but the word f*** is?” she asked a UB campus police officer who was attempting to calm her.
“What is the difference between that image and me saying f***? What is the difference?”

An official with the University of Buffalo Police Department confirmed to Campus Reform late Tuesday afternoon that the instructor was arrested on Monday and charged with disorderly conduct.

UPDATE: 6p: Well, the video has been removed from YouTube for copyright infringement. But you can view it at Mediaite.

[HT: Jill]

Mississippi’s only abortion clinic continued seeing patients Tuesday, the day after a federal judge temporarily stopped the state from closing it.

Several people wearing florescent yellow vests labeled “Clinic Escort” helped women find parking places and walked with them into the cherry pink building in a Jackson retail district. Outside an iron fence that separates Jackson Women’s Health Organization from the street, abortion opponents stood on a sidewalk and implored women not to end their pregnancies.

“And so we’re here to try to put our bodies between protesters and patients as they come in and out of the clinic.”

~ Hattiesburg American, reporting on a judge’s injunction against closing the Jackson Women’s Health Organization (pictured at top) during its lawsuit against a state requirement for abortionists to have admitting privileges at a local hospital (which the clinic “has been unable to get”), April 16

[Photo via 123people.com]

by Laura Loo

On Friday, Rep. Steve Stockman (R–Texas) tweeted out the slogan for what he said would be his new campaign bumper sticker, which combines two hot-button conservative issues into one controversial sound bite:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gleRE-8IBb0[/youtube]

[Article HT: Drudge Report]

In a Today Show interview taped earlier in the week but airing today, President Obama was (thankfully) asked about Kermit Gosnell. Watch video beginning at 3:00…

Transcript:

Savannah Guthrie: Have you been watching the Gosnell trial. It’s a Philadelphia abortion doctor accused of gruesome crimes. Are you following it, and do you think it animates a larger debate about abortion in this country?

President Obama: I am familiar with it. I can’t comment on it because it’s an active trial.

What I can say is this. I think President Clinton said it pretty well when he said, “Abortion should be safe, legal and rare.”

If an individual carrying out an abortion, operating a clinic, or doing anything else is violating medical ethics, violating the law, then they should be prosecuted.

Well, duh on that last sentence. Was there a question? Guess Obama had to clarify. And, of course, Obama has had no trouble discussing Trayvon Martin, despite the fact his is an open case.

In a follow-up interview Obama needs first to be asked why he thinks abortion should be rare. The word “rare” has been removed from the Democrat platform, because it obviously implies there is something wrong or bad about abortion. In fact, Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL, recently wrote she thinks abortion should be the opposite – “common.”

Another question: Does Obama still believe, as he did in 2002, that all abortionists are to be trusted? In a post the other day I included the written transcript of Obama’s opposition on the Illinois State Senate floor to a bill forcing abortionists to provide medical care to abortion survivors. Here is the audio, pretty chilling:

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

Yet another question: Does Obama still oppose a law, as he did as state senator, protecting abortion survivors against infanticide?

Interesting that NBC Philadelphia, where Gosnell is being tried, made this section of Obama’s Today Show interview into a lead story, using the photos at the top of this post.

There would be no curiosity about Obama’s position on Gosnell did not everyone know Obama supports infanticide.

by Lead moderator Carla

It was my pleasure to interview Pat Layton, author of Surrendering the Secret: Healing the Heartbreak of Abortion, in honor of Abortion Recovery Awareness Month.

Carla: Please share some of your personal story with me.

Pat: I had an abortion when I was 23 years old. I had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia and was rushed to the hospital and put on a respirator. Weeks later I had to go back and abort the rest of my baby. I never thought about what I was aborting. After that there was 7 years of drinking, doing drugs and other self destructive behaviors including suicide attempts. I surrendered my life to Christ and wrote the Surrendering the Secret bible study in 1986. I started a Pregnancy Resource Center and began to minister to post abortive women using Surrendering the Secret.

In 2008 Lifeway approached with their interest in publishing and since then the floodgates have opened! I have seen my work embraced by the church and positioned by God to explain abortion – to train, teach and equip churches to help the post abortive woman and man and couple!

Carla: Please tell me about the training needed for Surrendering the Secret.

Pat: There is a training program available to become certified in leading Surrendering the Secret. There are 1,045 leaders and trainers so far across the nation. On my website there is a map that shows how many leaders and trainers may be in your area in order to receive the training.

Carla: You also hold conferences for women. Please tell me about that.

Pat: I hold weekend conferences entitled Imagine Me Set Free. It is a 2 day conference that focus on “Peace with the Past” where I share my story; “Purpose in the Present” where women have quiet time to think of their own stories and what burdens are holding them back. There is ceremony to symbolize laying those burdens down. “Passion for the Future” is a happy send-off.

Carla: Please tell me more about PTSD in post abortive women and men.

Pat: We need to offer hope and help and support to women and men struggling with PTSD. Even more common than physical injuries are the psychological side effects of abortion. These commonly include grief, regret, shame, guilt, degradation, and a sense of worthlessness. Other side effects are insomnia, nightmares, exhaustion, nervousness, and severe depression. A known fact is that the suicide rate following abortion is twice that subsequent to a normal birth.

Carla: What are the main things you would like to stress to the readers of Jill Stanek’s blog?

Pat: We need to teach the importance of post-abortive women raising their voices and speaking out after receiving healing. Who will they tell their story to?

There is healing and help for all of those affected by abortion. We want that healing for ALL of them!

I also had the chance to hear the story of Pat’s miracle baby – her adopted daughter, Julianna. See video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1kLl9hsJDA[/youtube]

[Image via SurrenderingtheSecret.com]

The only issue libs have with #Gosnell is that he was”messy.” Otherwise, a very prolific and effective choicer!

~ Actor Nick Searcy slamming pro-choicers on Twitter, via Twitchy, April 14

[HT: The Other McCain]