UPDATE 3:50p: From Huffington Post, today:

Indiana state senators have dropped a requirement that would force women to undergo an ultrasound procedure both before and after having a medication-induced abortion, after the legislation attracted national criticism.

Could it be legislators added that second ultrasound to have something to compromise on and still get what they really wanted? Or maybe it was accidental. Still, an ultrasound bill moves forward.

10:09a: I read a piece last week by RH Reality Check’s Robin Marty complaining about pending ultrasound legislation in Indiana, which…

… would require not only that a patient undergo a likely mandatory forced trans-vaginal ultrasound prior to receiving the medication to induce abortion [RU486], but another vaginal ultrasound during her mandated follow up two weeks after the abortion.

Sure enough, SB 371 does mandate a follow-up ultrasound. Robin and I got into a little Twitter debate…

https://twitter.com/robinmarty/status/305030763248766976
https://twitter.com/robinmarty/status/305037916168650752

So I checked, thinking to myself that legislators likely did not compose that mandate out of thin air but were likely following established medical protocol. Sure enough, on Planned Parenthood’s website I found these instructions for medical abortions:

This would most likely be a transvaginal ultrasound, because these are more accurate with early pregnancies. As you can read, either an ultrasound or blood test is necessary to ensure the baby is dead.

In a survey of its members in 2003, the National Abortion Federation found that fully 92% of its abortion clinics either always or sometimes use vaginal ultrasounds after abortions…

Apparently, liberal MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow knows none of this. On February 21 Maddow attempted to mock and intimidate pro-life Indiana Governor Mike Pence away from supporting SB 371, trying to replay the other side’s successful attempt to intimidate pro-life Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell last year.

But in the process Maddow mocked the abortion industry’s own medical protocol. In the process Maddow mocked procedures aimed at protecting the health and safety of women. There are several reasons to perform ultrasounds both before and after RU486 abortions, as Indiana Right to Life explained in this piece.

I now give you Rachel Maddow, if you can stomach her…

Excerpt of Maddow’s most obtuse display:

Mike Pence may be about to double Governor Ultrasound [Bob McDonnell] , because Republicans in the Indiana senate have just advanced a bill that would force Indiana women against their will to have not one, but two medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds. Just because….

For women having the kind of abortion you can get very early in pregnancy, where you just take a pill that ends the pregnancy, Indiana Republicans want to force women to submit to a state-ordered vaginal probe before you are allowed to have that pill.

And then, two weeks later, the state government would like to make you come back for a second medically unnecessary, state-ordered vaginal probing after the first one.

Go ahead and imagine that job. Go ahead and imagine the person whose job it’s gonna be to try to do that, to try to convince Indiana women to come back in for a second medically unnecessary vaginal probe ultrasound.

“Hi, it’s Ann from the clinic. The governor insists that you come back in and get probed again. No, no, no, it’s not your doctor that wants it, it’s the governor. Do you know Governor Mike Pence?”

How about it, Mike Pence, do you want to be the new Governor Ultrasound when Bob McDonnell retires the title, this time 100% more unwanted more vaginal probing?

The Left’s willful ignorance is sometimes staggering.

Last year abortion proponents attempted to make ultrasound legislation radioactive by portraying the method used for early pregnancies, transvaginal ultrasound, as “rape.”

“Vaginal probes,” as the other side menacingly tagged them, are “a very invasive procedure,” according to NBC’s David Gregory.

Never mind that Planned Parenthood usually requires a mother to get an ultrasound before her abortion – which may be transvaginal, as you can see in PP’s screen shot above. And in a survey of its members in 2003, the National Abortion Federation found 83% always performed vaginal ultrasounds before early abortions. Only 1% never did…

And never mind that the abortion itself is much more invasive. If a mother can’t endure a transvaginal ultrasound, what does that say about her ability to endure abortion instruments and suction equipment?

Ultrasound legislation comes in various forms, but the goal is to give abortion-minded mothers the opportunity to see the baby they are about to abort in hopes of changing minds. It’s all about informed consent. We know some mothers wish they’d been given that option.

Abortion proponents first tried the “vaginal probe” tactic last spring in Virginia and partially won. No state aside from Oklahoma had ever even specifically mentioned transvaginal ultrasounds in their legislation, but the other side was able to get Governor Bob McDonnell to cave and mandate “transabdominal” ultrasounds only. After McDonnell’s blink, it looked like legislators in other states considering ultrasound bills might get wobbly as well.

Pro-aborts had the wind in their sails at the time. This was right after their victory against Komen and at the beginning of their “war on women” offense….

Would it hold?

I asked Mailee Smith, Staff Counsel for Americans United for Life, to look back at ultrasound legislation introduced in recent years. She reported:

2010: 16 states considered ultrasound provisions
2011: 18 states considered ultrasound provisions
2012: 18 states considered ultrasound provisions

To date this year 13 states have introduced ultrasound legislation.

As Mailee pointed out, the lower number doesn’t necessarily mean pro-life legislators have grown skittish. It is still early in the year. Plus, the pool of states in play has grown smaller. To date, 23 states have enacted ultrasound legislation, (see pages 85-86), and a 24th’s is in litigation. So the low hanging fruit of life-friendly states is depleting.

And in Virginia? Per Mailee, five bills have been introduced there to either water down or completely repeal its new ultrasound requirement, and all five bills have already failed.

I’ve never been so shocked in my life… to see speaker after speaker go to the podium in Charlotte at the Democratic National Convention and all but give a rallying cry (that) the single most important thing to them in all of America was not a stable economy, was not a secure border, it was not that we had peace within our country and that we were protected from enemies around the world.

It was not that we stop terrorism. It was not that we had an education system that gave our kids the opportunity to become independent and self-sufficient. It was not that we would have a food supply system that would allow us to feed ourselves and not be dependent on some foreign country.

It was not that we would have our own energy resources where we could take care of ourselves and not be slaves to some Middle Eastern tyrant who takes our money by the wads and then turns around and spends it to use against us to murder us and kill us in the name of a perverted faith. No, that wasn’t the most important issue.

The most important issue was: “I want to be able to take the life of my baby and I want someone else to pay for it.”

~ Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaking at a “Celebrate Life” forum sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa, as quoted by the Des Moines Register, February 23

[Photo via dailynewspulse.com]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• In India, an abortionist and others have been sentenced to jail time for the 2003 death of a woman due to an illegal late-term abortion.
• Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains has issued a press release, which is basically a “no-comment,” in response to Ayanna Byer’s lawsuit against them for forced abortion.:
  

  Apart from these legal requirements, Planned Parenthood has long maintained its own high standard for protecting the privacy and confidentiality of each of our patients. Thus, we cannot comment on the care we provide to any particular patient, or confirm that any individual has sought our care.“Nothing is more important to us than the safety and well-being of the patients we serve.”

• The Abortion Gang has a post (language warning) regarding Jennifer Morbelli’s death which boils down to the following absurd claims: Pro-lifers are bad people for reporting Morbelli’s death, pro-lifers apparently had no information about Morbelli’s death even though everything leading pro-lifers asserted has turned out to be accurate, we still don’t know if Morbelli’s health/life was threatened by the pregnancy, and when pro-lifers bring up Morbelli’s death and Carhart’s incompetence abortion advocates should stick their fingers in their ears and “not engage.”

Click to enlarge…

I’ve joined with Live Action, Operation Rescue, and Students for Life of America to launch a petition driven citizens’ complaint at StopCarhart.com. Signed petitions will be given to the Maryland Board of Physicians.

The petitions will be in support of the February 19 official complaint lodged by Operation Rescue against late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart.

Both complaints are asking for an immediate emergency suspension of Carhart’s Maryland medical license, followed by a permanent license revocation.

As most know, 29-yr-old Jennifer Morbelli, pictured right, died at a hospital near Carhart’s Germantown, Maryland, abortion clinic on February 7, following an abortion completed the day before by Carhart of Morbelli’s 33-wk-old preborn daughter Madison Leigh.

Carhart left the state soon after he finished Morbelli’s abortion, so he was nowhere to be found as her condition deteriorated, nor did he leave another physician on call for emergencies.

Read more at StopCarhart.com, and sign the petition. (You can also find out more about the Germantown situation at PrayForGermantown.com.) Spread the word via social media.

by LauraLoo

The government of Ireland is attempting to legalize abortion for women who are suicidal.  In response, leading medical experts demolished the abortion lobby’s arguments at recent government hearings held by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dTmvgNBq_Q[/youtube]

Unfortunately, we know the abortion lobby has never cared about medical facts relating to abortion, so these expert testimonials may make no difference.

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Jill]

I spoke and corresponded by email with Maryland Medical Examiner spokesperson Bruce Goldfarb on February 22 and 23 to get clarification on puzzling statements ascribed to him by two news organizations last week regarding the February 7 death of Jennifer Morbelli, a patient of late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart…

World Magazine, February 21:

The examiners’ office found Morbelli suffered from an “amniotic fluid embolism following a medical termination of pregnancy”….

That, in turn, led to a “disseminated intravascular coagulation”….

Goldfarb added that “fetal abnormalities” were responsible for the amniotic fluid embolism.

Washington Post, February 20:

The medical examiner listed three “causes of death.” One was “amniotic fluid embolism following a medical termination of pregnancy,” the complication involving amniotic fluid in the woman’s blood. Another was “disseminated intravascular coagulation,” a complication in which the body starts producing thousands of tiny blood clots, which have the counterintuitive effect of hampering the body’s ability to clot blood elsewhere. A third was “fetal abnormalities.”…

… Bruce Goldfarb, a spokesman for the office… declined to comment on the case Wednesday other than releasing the cause and manner of death, which are considered public record.

As I explained last week, the cause of amniotic fluid embolism leakage has nothing to do with whether a preborn baby has health issues. Such a false assertion only plays into the hands of abortion proponents.

So I was relieved when Goldfarb told me he never made such a statement to the press. “I didn’t say that,” he said.

These news organizations should retract such a critically false claim. It will unnecessarily frighten pregnant mothers.

Commenter Cranky Catholic posted a YouTube video link on AFEs that I found quite helpful…

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

[Thanks to Sheila for help with article]

These challenges have made me bitter. Bitter about the fact that I’m consistently denied my right to do or say anything about these issues. But bitter has made me want to speak louder, it has made me want to talk about it more, listen to people’s stories, strategize, obsess, and do something about it. And as I’ve come to obsess about this, I’ve gained a bit of a reputation.

I am that girl. The girl that drives around in the bright blue car covered in liberal bumper stickers that has been dubbed by some as the “dykemobile.” The girl that always talks about that “reproductive justice” stuff. That girl that knows everything about sex. The girl you go to, and you send your friends to, for any question you may have about sex.

~ Catholic University Students for Choice co-founder Callie Otto (pictured) bemoaning the difficulty of being a radical feminist at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., Choice USA, February 20

Photo via Callie Otto’s Twitter account