So a brief blog post today on one of the more utilitarian reasons that I have heard for abortion/contraception – it saves money….

This sounds to me like something I heard from a colleague last year that the reason that New York’s prison population was down… because of Roe v Wade – since then, thousands of poor people have had abortions and a large number of those aborted babies would’ve committed crime and ended up in jail.

I should have suggested to him that an even better way of reducing prison population would be to kill everyone inside, but that would’ve made things awkward and I had only half-finished my drink at the time (and so no quick escape from the awkwardness).

Surely these sorts of arguments are completely beside the point when it comes to abortion. Either abortion is killing of the most innocent, in which case utilitarian arguments like this are sickening and deeply perverse, or abortion is nothing more than a medical procedure, in which case how much money it may save the state is neither here nor there… unless the state is thinking of using it as an argument for compulsory abortion as a cost saving device, a la China?

So, as with most abortion arguments, they are a smokescreen which obscure the real argument: are we killing a human being or not?

~ Marcus Roberts, Mercator Net, March 28

[Graphic via chillertv.com]

If abortion proponents condemned 2011 as “the year of abortion restrictions… mark[ing] a sea change for abortion rights,” and 2012 as “an unmitigated disaster for abortion rights,” I can’t imagine what they will say about 2013.

In 2011 there were a record 92 pro-life laws enacted in the states, followed by the second highest number, 43, in in 2012. This year has already seen at least 14 pro-life bills become law, according to Mailee Smith, Staff Counsel for Americans United for Life, so we are on track for another banner year.

But in 2013 we are not only seeing a high volume of typical pro-life legislative fare, we are seeing passage of pro-life legislation on steroids, the likes of which has never been observed in 40 years of legalized abortions throughout the U.S.

Yesterday, North Dakota adopted the “heartbeat” ban, which outlaws abortion once a baby’s heart tones can be detected, as early as six weeks. At the same time ND Governor Jack Dalrymple signed the first ever ban against eugenic abortions for fetal abnormalities or gender.

Bumped from the top spot, held only three weeks, was Arkansas, which on March 6 passed what was then an unprecedented ban on abortions after 12 weeks.

Just a week prior, Arkansas became the 10th* state to pass a ban on abortions after 20 weeks.

Then there’s the Personhood Amendment. On March 22 North Dakota became the first state to legislatively authorize a ballot initiative that would establish the right to life from the moment of conception.

The other side is attempting to exude coolness by mocking and dismissing, but you know they must be overwhelmed, not just because the attacks against abortion are coming from all sides, but also because of pro-life chutzpah and legislative cohesiveness never before seen.

Mother Jones has created three rounds of “Anti-Choice March Madness” charts, because:

Despite being Women’s History Month, March has seen relentless attacks on ladies’ rights. As soon as one state passes some outrageous woman-restricting bill, another is right behind with something even, well, outrageous-er. The “state-by-state race to the bottom on women’s health,” as the president of Planned Parenthood put it, inspired us to set up our own March Madness bracket to determine the national champion in the War on Women.

Read through the match-ups to get a thrill up your leg. The winner is, no surprise, North Dakota! Click to enlarge…

More on the pro-life tsunami from Politico, March 26:

For years, decades even, abortion fights targeted procedures used in later stages of pregnancy, such as the ban on certain late-term abortions. Or they focused on making abortion harder to access because of rules like waiting periods, parental notification or regulations that make it harder for clinics to stay in business. Several states have also begun to put restrictions on drugs used to terminate a pregnancy in its early weeks, like… RU-486.

Then the battleground began to shift. A few years ago, states began passing “fetal pain” laws, restricting abortions at around 20 weeks post-fertilization….

This year, states have begun hurtling toward very early bans, in the first trimester of pregnancy.

“It’s an astonishing display, really. I think in the last month, we’ve seen legislatures basically in a race to the bottom, each one trying to outdo each other in being more anti-choice than the other,” said Donna Crane, policy director for NARAL….

“These are obviously, these are without question, unconstitutional,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said. “There’s no chance that these could stand up in court. They are an absolute affront to the current standards.”…

Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said… “These are certainly the most extreme restrictions that we have seen in quite some time. But I don’t think we should miss the point that the goal of all the restrictions is to make it very difficult, if not impossible, for a woman to get an abortion if she needs one”…

Note that both Richards of PP and Donna Crane of NARAL used the “race to the bottom” catch phrase. They must share PR firms.

From a PP email alert yesterday (click to enlarge)…

Well, duh.

*According to AUL, 10 states maintain prohibitions of abortion at 20 weeks: AL, AR, DE, IN, KS, LA, NE, NC, OH, and OK. Three state laws are in litigation: AZ, GA, ID.

by LauraLoo

A pair of teenagers was arrested Friday for the fatal shooting death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago, and for the wounding of his mother, during their morning stroll in Brunswick, Georgia.

From the Associated Press:

[Sherry] West, the baby’s mother, has said she and her son were walking home from the post office, a few blocks from her apartment, when they were approached by two youths asking for money. She said she told them she had none, and an older teenager drew a handgun and asked her: “Do you want me to shoot your baby?”

She said the gunman shot her in the leg, and another bullet grazed her left ear, before he shot her baby in the face. West and the boy’s father had just celebrated Antonio’s first birthday in February.

West identified De’Marquise Elkins [pictured above] as the shooter when police showed her a photo lineup of 24 faces….

Other accounts have stated that the shooter fired four shots before he walked around to the front of the stroller and shot baby Antonio in the face.

According to MSN:

Fifteen-year-old Dominique Lang is also charged…. Both suspects are charged as adults.

And now Elkins’ mother and aunt have both been arrested:

Glynn County jail records show 36-year-old Karimah Elkins and 33-year-old Katrina Elkins were booked Tuesday on charges of making false statements to police.

Karimah Elkins is the mother of 17-year-old De’Marquise Elkins….

Katrina Elkins is the suspect’s aunt. She told The Associated Press and other media on Saturday that her nephew couldn’t have killed the child because he was at her house having breakfast.

More here and here.

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

What a senseless tragedy.

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Drudge Report]

…’Cause if gay marriage ends up becoming legal all across the country without a corresponding vote of the people, we’re going to have as roiled a society on that issue as we do on abortion.

~ Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, predicting the consequences if the Supreme Court rules broadly in favor of gay marriage, March 26

[Photo: ProCon]

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.

• At Priests for Life, Janet Morana discusses the case of Ariel Knights, who sought (and thought she had) an abortion after she was told her pregnancy was a risk to her life due to uterus didelphys, and her baby survived. Most revealing is that this article on the case minces no words regarding the substandard conditions of the abortion facility and stark facts of the procedure:
  

  When her name was called that March morning a year ago, she walked into a cramped room and climbed onto a table, positioning her lower body above a trash bag. When the doctor finished, Knights, still woozy from being sedated, was handed her things and shown the door.

• ProWomanProLife has been following the “Vagina Warriors” and their efforts to shut down (or shout down, as the case may be) any sort of intelligent discussion on abortion. Canadian MP Stephen Woodworth, a conservative who made a motion to study a legal definition of when life begins, was invited to speak at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, but was instead confronted with the “warriors'” pro-choice theatrics (pictured left).
• Wesley J. Smith says the state of Washington is attempting to pass a law that would require employers to pay for elective abortions through their insurance policies – yet another assault on business owners’ conscience and religious rights that could drive businesses out of the state. How far is the abortion industry willing to go to get taxpayer-funded abortions?
• Real Choice continues to chronicle women’s deaths from both illegal and legal abortion, showing that regardless of legality or time period, abortionist quacks abound.
• John Smeaton says Easter Sunday will also be the date of a temporary hold on an anti-life law in the Philippines.
• Bryan Kemper recently sent out a fundraising email that reached a pregnant, abortion-minded woman, who called Kemper to complain. During their conversation, he referred the woman to a counselor and she has chosen life for her preborn child. Wow!
• A Voice for Hope encourages you to take the time to listen to a panel discussion on pro-life and religious liberty from the recent CPAC conference:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/glx901gdvww[/youtube]

[Photo via National Post]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• A record number of people wrote in to oppose the HHS Mandate regulations:
  

  Three years after Congress approved President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), contraceptive care remains its most controversial provision, drawing not only more comments than any other regulatory proposal on any subject government-wide, according to an analysis of federal regulations on Sunlight’s Docket Wrench.

  More than 147,000 people and organizations have made their voices heard over the debate, most of them opposing the provision that requires that federal agencies have interpreted to mean that women have access to preventive services–including contraception – at no cost.

• The latest person to testify in the Kermit Gosnell murder trial is Philadelphia Fire Department Lt. Don Burgess, regarding his being called to Gosnell’s clinic as Karnamaya Mongar was dying:
  

  Burgess said they were led through a “maze to a room where we found a female nude from the waist down and with her feet in stirrups.”

  A female worker and Gosnell were there but neither was doing anything, and there was no sign emergency resuscitation had been tried.

  “The doctor was confused,” Burgess said, responding to questions from Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron. “I asked him what happened, and he blurted out something I couldn’t understand.”

• Ohio pro-lifers are upset with the University of Toledo for helping to keep an abortion clinic open:
  

  He distributed paperwork showing that the Ohio Department of Health in March, 2012, levied a fine of $25,000 and threatened to shut down Capital Care Network for having no transfer agreement in place. The shutdown threat was canceled after Capital Care signed an agreement with the UT Medical Center, formerly the Medical College of Ohio, in August, 2012.

  “This abortion mill would not be able to exist without the University of Toledo and it’s time for the University of Toledo to get out of the abortion business, even if it’s indirect,” Mr. [John] Coats [of Ohio Right to Life, pictured left] said.

  Rep. Lynn Wachtmann (R., Napoleon) said he believes Ohio law already prohibits the arrangement under its ban on state-funded entities supporting abortion, but said he would soon introduce legislation to make the ban more explicit.

• In the Washington Times, Victoria Cobb writes about the abortion industry’s opposition to public oversight and how that endangers women:
  

  Some industry representatives claim they support regulations, but say that the proposed Virginia standards “go too far.” In fact, for several years they adamantly opposed legislation before the Virginia General Assembly that would have required only licensing, inspections and emergency equipment. Now we know why.

  The discovery of widespread violations of health and safety in the inspections — inspections the industry fought so hard to stop — reveals that it has no credibility when it comes to which regulations are necessary and which are not. An industry that has covered up for two decades the kinds of problems found in the inspection reports does not deserve to be listened to when it comes to how it should be regulated.

As many abortionists are found to be over the course of time, abortionist Reginald Sharpe is a menace to society.

The rap sheet against Sharpe is long.

Sharpe’s medical license was placed on probation in 1998 for illegally administrating drugs and was suspended in 2005 after he botched an illegal 27-week abortion. Sharpe was busted in 2008 for illegally dumping patient records, aborted babies, medical waste, and syringes. In 2010 Medicaid revoked Sharpe’s certification for unspecified “fraud and abuse, false billing, or kickbacks.”

In addition, Sharpe has been sued at least five times:

• March 2006: Sharpe/Northland Family Planning abortion clinic paid a $50,000 settlement for failure to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy, which led to the loss of a fallopian tube.
• January 2009: Sharpe sued for committing an abortion without the mother’s consent. Case is on appeal.
• April 2011: Sharpe sued by the family of a woman who died following an abortion, for perforating her uterus and lacerating a uterine blood vessel, intestines, and liver.
• August 2012: After missing an ectopic pregnancy during an abortion on April 2011, Sharpe  sued after the mother’s fallopian tube burst.
• August 2012: Sharpe sued for an August 2011 botched abortion after leaving a baby’s head inside a mother’s uterus and fetal parts floating in her abdomen as well as puncturing her uterus at least seven times.

Sharpe’s finances are also a mess. Last October Sharpe filed for bankruptcy, claiming to be $200,000 in debt. Want to hear Sharpe’s voice? Here’s a snippet of audio of Sharpe explaining to the court how he came to owe the IRS $100,000.

At one point Sharpe owned three abortion mills in Michigan but closed one in Bloomfield last year and two more in Livonia and Detroit earlier this month.

After Sharpe filed for bankruptcy his bank, Comerica, belatedly learned he was carrying no malpractice insurance and had “no real prospect for doing so in the future.”

Because Sharpe filed for bankruptcy, the latter three lawsuits listed above were dismissed by the court.

Fortunately, anti-abortion omnibus bill HB 5711, signed into Michigan law last December, which Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards called “extreme,” will require abortionists to carry $1 million of malpractice insurance as of April 1. UPDATE: Have been corrected on this point by Right to Life of Michigan’s legislative director, Ed Rivet. The malpractice insurance requirement was removed before the bill was signed over disagreements. What a travesty.

One might assume this menace abortionist is off the streets.

But no. Pro-life investigator Lynn Mills has confirmed Sharpe is now working at Summit Women’s Center abortion clinic in Detroit. Lynn snapped a photo of him at the mill, right.

Lynn got additional corroboration in this shocking little video shot earlier this month. You’ll see Lynn show a Summit staffer the death certificate of the mother Sharpe killed. The staffer first denies Sharpe had anything to do with it, then defended death as one of the complications of abortion…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh4fZg8Qd_k[/youtube]

Thanks again to Lynn for her thorough research into Sharpe’s history and whereabouts. Lynn has been tracking Michigan abortionists for over 30 years, searching dockets for lawsuits that would otherwise go unknown, keeping records, conferring with a strong contingent of pro-lifers in the state, and contacting lawyers, insurance companies, and police to share information.

Here’s a photo of Lynn I love, of her victoriously exiting Sharpe’s Livonia mill earlier this month after being allowed by movers to walk through it. Click to enlarge…

There are hundreds of Lynns across the country who track abortionists and stand in witness at abortion clinics. The movement is indebted to these unsung heroes.

[Top photo via Citizens for a Pro-Life Society; pro-abortion photo via Think Progress; photo of Sharpe via LifeSiteNews.com]

by Hans Johnson

In this season of Resurrection, consider the story of Kayli Whistler, diagnosed with Trisomy 18, who was pronounced dead during a heart operation. After 32 minutes she revived and is now almost four years old. View her Facebook page here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKCi_ymBWg8[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: GodTube]