Republicans stepped up their campaign Thursday against the Obama administration’s controversial contraception rule, using the pulpit of the premier conservative conference in Washington to assail the policy as an unconstitutional “attack on religious freedom.”

The sustained GOP criticism, including a letter of opposition Thursday from three state attorneys general, came as key Democrats continued to peel away from the president on the issue or at least call for compromise. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the party’s 2004 presidential nominee, told Fox News on Thursday that the policy should be adjusted to include a conscience clause.

“I think it can be implemented effectively in a way that protects women’s access but at the same time protects people’s rights and conscience,” Kerry said. “I think it’s an unnecessary debate.”

Vice President Biden, who is Catholic, also reportedly said Thursday he’s “determined to see that this gets worked out.”

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, a string of high-powered Republican speakers singled out the policy, which requires religious schools and hospitals to provide contraceptive coverage to employees.
“This isn’t even a social issue. This is a constitutional issue,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said onstage. “What (the Constitution) says is that the federal government does not have the power to force religious organizations to pay for things that that organization thinks is wrong.”

House Speaker John Boehner, who a day earlier took to the House floor to vow to repeal the policy unless the Obama administration backs off, said Thursday that a “fundamental American value” is at stake. He said at CPAC that lawmakers would debate the issue, adding: “One thing is for certain — this attack on religious freedom cannot and will not stand.”

The President is even losing members of his own party over this one:

At least nine Democratic members of Congress have spoken out against the policy or suggested it should be changed. Among them, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said in a newspaper interview he has told the White House he opposes the policy.

President Obama: A uniter! But not in the way he claimed to want to be.

Janet Daley, writing for the Telegraph, sees this as another disturbing example of the Europization of America:

So why has the President chosen this high-risk path? The White House spokesman says simply that the administration is committed to giving women access to these services “no matter where they work”. In other words, this is an issue of equality: everyone must have the same access to identical provision even if they (knowingly) work for an employer who is opposed in principle to such provision. This is a classic case of government-backed equality vs individual freedom of conscience, of a kind with which we are very familiar in Britain. It is, in fact, a direct consequence of the uniformity which any national healthcare plan must involve.

But it is also a departure from the traditional American view (enshrined in the Constitution) that the government shall not interfere in the people’s right to religious assembly and practice. What the Obama White House has effectively decided is that religion can not be allowed to interfere with the secular values which government has decreed – such as the right to equality in contraception services. Religion itself is being firmly put in its box. If the state decides that contraception must be available to all, then no church or theological text will be allowed to stand in the way. Once again, the US is following where Europe leads: to a future in which all values will be determined and enforced by the state.

As noted earlier, the push back against against this has been pretty significant and wide-ranging. It will be interesting to see how the administration tries to play the middle, especially during an election year. Who would he rather alienate the least – Catholics or “feminist” pro-aborts? That is how the administration views this issue, not whether it is right or wrong from a Constitutional standpoint, which should have been their first and foremost concern.

In an ideal world where leaders in positions of power actually care about the Constitution, anyway …

I wrote earlier that Catholic bishops across America had come out strongly against the Obama administration decision requiring religious organizations to pay for the cost of providing contraceptives and abortifacients to their employees. Jewish and Protestant groups aligned themselves with the bishops.

Now Orthodox Christian bishops have joined in:

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. This freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to pay for “contraceptive services” including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services that directly violate their religious convictions. Providing such services should not be regarded as mandated medical care. We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.

As Joshua Treviño describes it, it is very unusual for Orthodox bishops to make an overtly political declaration. (Also h/t)

I really don’t think Team Obama quite knows what they’ve unleashed on themselves. But they’ll find out on Election Day.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

I had planned on writing the epic rants of all epic rants tonight, which would have probably have included some uncharacteristic profanity on my part, but I’ve mellowed a bit as the night has gone on – which is probably a good thing, and Daniel Foster’s piece is pretty definitive.

What I would add to what Foster wrote above is this:

Point of clarification: The Komen Foundation is not “pro-life” and are arguably not “pro-choice”.  Steve Ertelt at Life News makes a good point about that here:

FACT:  Komen is not a pro-life organization.

When Komen announced its decision to change its policy to not funding organizations that are under formal investigation or that act as pass-through agencies rather than providing direct support for women’s health, some pro-life advocates went beyond merely thanking them and acted as if Komen had suddenly become a pro-life group worthy of unreserved support. It is not.

Komen is, or is attempting to be, an abortion-neutral organization. As such, it will likely continue making decisions that disappoint pro-life advocates as it attempts to find a non-existent middle ground in the debate between those who cherish the right to life of unborn children and the well-being of their mothers and those who favor their destruction.

If you want to put your trust fully in an organization that has as its only mission the betterment of the health of women and unborn children, support your favorite pro-life group (or LifeNews) or your local pregnancy center.

Yep, although I think in the context of an outfit like Komen that it is arguable they can’t be neutral on the issue of abortion for purposes of fundraising and donations (I’m sure Steve will disagree with me on that!).  Very likely, they’re tired of being “in the middle” and want to get out of the controversy altogether and do what they do best, which is to fight breast cancer. For years they’ve been under pressure from pro-life groups to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood, and even though their stated reason this week for halting that ‘tradition’ of sorts was due to Planned Parenthood being under investigation, it’s hard to believe that the pressure from pro-lifers (not to mention the fact that their vice-president is pro-life) didn’t impact its’ decision to a measurable extent.  On the flip side, this week Planned Parenthood responded by utilizing its’ high degree of power and influence over the easily manipulated in order to – with the despicable help of Democrat politicos coming down on a PRIVATE organization – to bully, shame, and intimidate Komen into doing a reversal of sorts (although the level of reversal is up for debate at this point), even going so far as to actively encourage people NOT to contribute to an organization whose whole mission is to eradicate breast cancer.

Zapping breast cancer is a women’s health issue, right?

Of course it is, but as we all know abortion is the mother of all issues for so-called “women’s health” groups like Planned Parenthood and the like.  It’s how they make their money – by touting their “pro-choice” credentials and stirring up divisiveness – especially during a crucial election year – which is exactly what’s happened here. What’s also established fact now is that “women’s  health” is code for “abortion” with the pro-abortion crowd. And Planned Parenthood demonstrated this week is that, above all else, in their minds the “right” to terminate a developing unborn child at any stage of development is more essential to a woman’s health and well-being than treating and trying to find cures for a top killer of women: breast cancer.

That Planned Parenthood made a special point to influence their supporters not to donate any more to Komen out of pure spite just proves what pro-lifers have said all along about them and where their real priorities reside: Not with breast cancer sufferers or any other major women’s health issue instead but with women who want to abort their unborn child because they’d rather finish college first,  or because it would impact their careers, etc.   In essence, Komen is saying here that women who have a choice as to what to do about their “health issue” (unborn baby) should take priority over women who don’t have a choice over their health issue (breast cancer).

It’s a pretty stunning accusation, isn’t it? But it is dead-on accurate.

Pro-choicers would say that Planned Parenthood is doing the same thing that pro-life groups do: Encouraging people not to donate due to disagreements over practices, but that’s not accurate in this case because pro-lifers have an issue-based reason for not supporting Planned Parenthood: Every dime of money that goes to them even earmarked for something else is money that frees up use of the “private” money they use to perform abortions (the last stats I saw on the number of abortions they performed was somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 a YEAR – certainly not “rare”).  The idea is to make it so Planned Parenthood has no choice but to cut back on its’ abortion services in order to provide other health services for women. In short, it’s an effort to get PP to re-prioritize how they use their money, as well as to make the point that  an unborn baby is not a “health issue” – it’s a living, developing child that most likely will not cause health issues down the road for any woman.   Cosmetic “issues”, yes – but health issues, more often than not – no.

On the flip side, what is Planned Parenthood doing?  This outfit, famous world-wide for it’s so-called “commitment” to “women’s health issues like abortion and breast cancer”, demonizes and uses bullying tactics, including utilizing their powerful tools in the government (20+ Democrat Senators, for starters) to try and intimidate leading-breast-cancer researcher Komen into changing their minds. And in the midst of it all, their plan was clear and open: You don’t continue donating to us, we’ll work to try to make it to where you don’t get a dime of money from anyone.  Translation: No matter the good work you’ve done in the past, we’ll put you out of business.  Maybe your clients will then come see US, even though we don’t even PROVIDE mammograms and breast cancer screens!

It’s extremely important to understand how dangerous this was and is: They didn’t want people to stop donating to Komen because Komen had all of a sudden gone pro-life (they hadn’t), and they didn’t want people to stop donating to Komen because Komen was no longer offering breast cancer services (they still do).  They wanted people to stop donating to Komen – a word-leader in cancer research – because Komen wanted to stop giving money to them.

And if there’s anyone out there who doesn’t understand the distinction between boycotting an organization on an issues-basis versus urging people to boycott it because they’ve pulled some of your funding that you damn well know you can get elsewhere (yeah, PP already raised enough this week to take care of an entire year – roughly the amount they would get from Komen), then I really can’t help you.  Same same for anyone who doesn’t see the rank hypocrisy of a “women’s health” group like PP essentially trying to have shut down one of the premier providers of breast cancer treatment and research out of  pure, b*tchy spite.

Planned Parenthoood: “Pro-choice” – unless you’re a private organization that chooses to stop giving them money that make’s it easier for them to provide elective abortions.  Then it’s game on!   This week’s shameful actions by Planned Parenthood should tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about these parasites to decency and humanity – that is, if you didn’t know already.

The state Senate this afternoon gave preliminary approval for legislation that would require pregnant women to undergo ultrasound imaging before an abortion, but not before rejecting a Democratic senator’s attempt to add what she described as “ a little gender equity” to the bill.

Democrat Janet Howell of Fairfax County proposed requiring men to undergo a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before getting prescriptions for erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra.

“This is a matter of basic fairness,” Howell said.

Senate Bill 484 would require a pregnant woman to undergo ultrasound imaging to determine the gestational age of the fetus, and be given an opportunity to view the ultrasound image, before having an abortion. The proposed law also requires the abortion provider to keep a printed copy of the ultrasound image in the patient’s file.

[...]

Howell said she left last week’s committee meeting feeling “quite distressed and angry” about the bill.

“It’s requiring them to have unnecessary medical procedures, it’s adding to the cost and it’s opening them up for emotional blackmail,” she said on the Senate floor today. “And I was upset because it’s disrespectful of doctors. It’s forcing them to perform procedures they don’t think is necessary.”

She said she was watching television in her hotel room that evening and saw an ad for an erectile dysfunction drug that included a recitation of “all the serious things that could happen to a man who was going to take this medication.”

“So, I said, it’s only fair, that if we’re going to subject women to unnecessary procedures, and we’re going to subject doctors to having to do things that they don’t think is medically advisory, well, Mr. President, I think we should just have a little gender equity here,” Howell said, explaining her amendment.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jill Vogel, R-Fauquier County, disagreed.

“I do believe that erectile dysfunction in this context is different from pregnancy,” Vogel said.

Darned right it is! But leave it to a far left “feminist” to skip – deliberately – over the fact that pregnancy ultrasounds have a little bit of something to do with an unborn baby, whereas ED has nothing to do with a developing fetus.  Oh no, let’s not talk about that little inconvenient fact! Too confusing and all that.

Not only that, but men with ED issues who don’t seek that treatment are far less likely to impregnate a woman than a man who is healthy “down there” (ahem!), which is sorta kinda like birth control, which the senator should support.  Or somethin’ …

In a heated clash on Fox News, Colmes appeared on air with Rich Lowry, editor of National Review. The two contributors were discussing Santorum’s recent surge in the polls, when Colmes brought up Santorum’s infant son who died just two hours after being born.

Colmes said, “Once [voters] get a load of some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his two-hour-old baby who died right after childbirth home and played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real…”

Lowry interjected and called Colmes’ comment a “cheap shot.” “It’s not, it’s not a cheap shot,” Colmes said.

Lowry continued to cut off Colmes and said, “To say it’s ‘crazy,’ something that’s that personal and harmful as losing a child, and to mock it, to mock him like that, is really beyond the pale and beneath you.” Lowry added that the remark was “contemptible.”

Colmes doubled down and said, “I’m not mocking the losing of the child, but what I’m saying is I think it shows a certain unusual attitude to take a two-hour baby home that died to play with his other children.”

Later, Colmes climbed down off his high horse and apologized to the Santorums, which they accepted:

Hannity brought up that Colmes had said he had apologized to Santorum and brought the audience to speed on his comments, or at least the subject matter therein. Santorum responded that “there’s a lot of nasty stuff out there on the internet, and I’m sure Alan Colmes reads a lot of that stuff from the left.” He then explained what he had done with the child– remain with him for the night and show him to his siblings after he had passed, as a way to “recognize the dignity of that life”– and added that “it was a tremendously healing experience,” though “I can understand why people may want to do something differently.”

As for his conversation with Colmes, Santorum explained that he accepted. “I know Alan is a very good person at heart,” he told Hannity, “He made a mistake, he admitted the mistake… we all say things and do stupid things.” He did note, however, that it was “part of the culture” for people to make mean comments and impossible to avoid them. “They do say those things, but please, don’t repeat them.”

Santorum was and is extremely gracious in accepting Colmes apology about a deeply personal issue that the Santorums themselves put out there years ago in book form as part of their healing process, and also in order to try and help other families who have had to deal with the tragic loss of an infant child.

On the other hand, yours truly is not nearly as forgiving of Colmes and his despicable personal attack.

Frankly, I don’t believe Colmes’ apology.  He has a history of going deeply negative and disturbingly personal in his attacks on the political opposition – as was the case with Governor Palin back in 2008, when he actually posted on his blog the insinuation that the Governor and her husband Todd had conceived their first son Track out of wedlock.   How did he come to that conclusion? He actually took the time to calculate the time of their anniversary back to the day they eloped, and concluded that because “less than 8 months” after they had their first son (screencap of the post here):

In her speech in Dayton today, Gov. Sarah Palin announced that she and her husband are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary, which means they were married on August 29, 1988.

On April 20, 1989 –  less than eight months after they eloped  – their first son, Track, was born.

I think I can guess the real reason why they eloped, and it wasn’t to save money on an expensive wedding.

Of course, Colmes wasn’t the only one who “went there” in nasty personal attacks on Palin.  None of us will forget the obsession many on the far left (which some still have) had with whether or not Palin’s youngest son Trig, who suffers from Down’s Syndrome,  was really her son or that of her daughter Bristol Palin – who in actuality was five months pregnant at the time with her own child.  We’ll also never forget outrageous attacks from some so-called “feminists” about how Palin shouldn’t have subjected her special needs son to a brutal vice-presidential campaign and instead should have gone back home and been a full-time mom to Trig, in spite of the fact that Trig was rarely on the campaign trail with her.

Yes, some people issue(d) apologies and “clarifications” after the fact, but by that point it’s too late  - which is exactly the way they want it. The idea with the political left, as it has been for decades now, is to throw mud on the wall and hope some of it sticks, even if some sacrificial lefty lambs come of as heartless jerks in the process. It’s a way of them inserting rumors, innuendos, and deliberate misrepresentations and distortions of the facts into the public discourse in order to try and convince just enough people that the right is full of nothing but  backroad hicks, country bumpkins, and other various and assorted fruit cakes who are not fit to be your local dog catcher, much less a public servant in a high political office.

Conservative writer Mark Steyn slammed that point home in a column he wrote for National Review Online over the weekend which talked about the mythical “empathy” of the left, and how it has limits – especially when it comes to “weirdifying” conservatives for shameless political and social gain:

Lest you doubt that we’re headed for the most vicious election year in memory, consider the determined effort, within ten minutes of his triumph in Iowa, to weirdify Rick Santorum. Discussing the surging senator on Fox News, Alan Colmes mused on some of the “crazy things” he’s said and done.

Santorum has certainly said and done many crazy things, as have most members of America’s political class, but the “crazy thing” Colmes chose to focus on was Santorum’s “taking his two-hour-old baby when it died right after childbirth home,” whereupon he “played with it.” MyNational Review colleague Rich Lowry rightly slapped down Alan on air, and Colmes subsequently apologized, though not before Mrs. Santorum had been reduced to tears by his remarks. Undeterred, Eugene Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post columnist, doubled down on stupid and insisted that Deadbabygate demonstrated how Santorum is “not a little weird, he’s really weird.”

[...]

There is something telling about what Peter Wehner at Commentary rightly called the “casual cruelty” of Eugene Robinson. The Left endlessly trumpets its “empathy.” President Obama, for example, has said that what he looks for in his judges is “the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.” As he told his pro-abortion pals at Planned Parenthood, “we need somebody who’s got the heart — the empathy — to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom.” Empathy, empathy, empathy: You barely heard the word outside clinical circles until the liberals decided it was one of those accessories no self-proclaimed caring progressive should be without.

Indeed, flaunting their empathy is what got Eugene Robinson and many others their Pulitzers — Robinson describes his newspaper column as “a license to feel.” Yet he’s entirely incapable of imagining how it must feel for a parent to experience within the same day both new life and death — or even to understand that the inability to imagine being in that situation ought to prompt a little circumspection.

The Left’s much-vaunted powers of empathy routinely fail when confronted by those who do not agree with them politically. Rick Santorum’s conservatism is not particularly to my taste (alas, for us genuine right-wing crazies, it’s that kind of year), and I can well see why fair-minded people would have differences with him on a host of issues from spending to homosexuality. But you could have said the same thing four years ago about Sarah Palin — and instead the Left, especially the so-called feminist Left, found it easier to mock her gleefully for the soi-disant retard kid and her fecundity in general. The usual rap against the Right is that they’re hypocrites — they vote for the Defense of Marriage Act, and next thing you know they’re playing footsie across the stall divider with an undercover cop at the airport men’s room. But Rick Santorum lives his values, and that seems to bother the Left even more.

Bang on.

And is it just me or does anyone else find it to be the height of absurdity for pro-abortion leftists like Colmes- you know, the kind who support a woman’s “right” to have her developing unborn child’s body parts sucked out piece by piece as part of the abortion process – attempting to assert moral authority over anything, much less a family’s respectful grieving process for an unborn baby they loved from the moment of conception?

Dear Alan Colmes and any other liberal, feminist or not, who has used and twisted (or who will use and twist in the future) this personal family tragedy in an attempt to score cheap political points during an election year: I’ve got two words for you and they’re not fit to print here, much less for a lady to say out loud.  The first one starts with an “F” and the last one ends in a “u.”  I’m sure you can figure the rest out, geniuses.

It’s being dubbed by liberals and Democrat politicos alike as the “Let Women Die” act. They’re even fundraising off of the nickname (and, of course, off the backs of millions of aborted babies):

We have to act fast.

House Republicans are set to vote today on a bill that would go even farther than Republicans’ previous efforts to restrict women’s access to reproductive health care.

This GOP bill would allow emergency rooms to refuse women life-saving healthcare. Pundits are calling it the “Let Women Die” act.

We must act immediately to call out the right-wing Republicans behind this assault on women. We’ve set a goal of raising $100,000 for the DCCC Women’s Health Rapid Response Fund so we can hold these Republicans accountable.

Should I remind you that this is the same “pro woman” crowd that remains silent while female babies are aborted at an alarming rate in places like India and China as part of each country’s forced “sex selective abortion” practices?

No shame. These people have no. shame. what. so. ever.

“For a moment, I want to get back to what was asked about the issue on the floor today that Mr. Hoyer addressed,” Pelosi said. “He made a point and I want to emphasize it. Under this bill, when the Republicans vote for this bill today, they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene if this bill is passed. It’s just appalling.”

What’s “appalling” is the fact that she’d make such an ignorant, inflammatory, demagogic accusation in the first place. National Review’s K-Lo sets the former House Speaker straight:

Pelosi is warping conscience protection for pro-life hospital workers into that appalling nonsense.

In truth, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act already requires hospital workers to do whatever is necessary to stabilize the condition of both the mother and her “unborn child” (the wording in the law) in an emergency room.

It’s also appalling nonsense to contend that it is only liberal women who can properly defend women’s health, which she also does.

Here’s what the Protect Life Act actually does – via The Politico:

The bill, called the Protect Life Act, would ban the federal funding for abortions and bar women from using tax subsidies from the health care law to buy insurance that cover abortion – except in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother. It would also ensure that health-care providers are protected if they believe that performing abortion procedures clashes with their personal beliefs.

Life News has a more complete analysis of the bill here. Make sure to read the whole thing.

Pelosi, as you may have guessed, is not the only female Democrat politician shamelessly framing this issue in a manner that makes it look like the GOP “doesn’t care” about women’s health:

(CNN) — House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi condemned the abortion bill the House debated Thursday, arguing that if it passed, “women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene.”

The bill, the “Protect Life Act,” sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Joe Pitts, amends the health care law to bar any federal funding for any plan that provides any abortion services. The House is set to vote on the bill later Thursday.

Democrats opposed to the bill charged that the GOP majority is ignoring the nation’s top priority and instead spending time on a bitterly divisive issue.

“Instead of focusing on jobs, Republicans are continuing to wage their war on women,” California Democrat Barbara Lee said on the House floor.

Right. Even though GOP women support most pro-life measures in the House, the GOP is “waging a war on women.”

Continuing:

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, who revealed last year that she suffered a miscarriage and required a procedure to end her pregnancy, accused Republicans of being “absolutely misogynist” for bringing up the bill.

But Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolina, responded, “The misogyny comes from those who promote the killing of unborn babies.”

I suppose Rep. Foxx is a “misogynist”, according to Rep. Speier’s warped deductions.

I get really sick of these “feminist” women acting as though their party is the only party who is interested in “protecting women’s health.” It’s a flat out lie, and they damn well know it is. I’m also pretty fed up with them using code words like “women’s health” to mean “abortion.” Why not just say the word everytime you talk about “women’s health issues”? I suspect it’s because abortion is unpopular with a majority of the American people, so pro-aborts, as usual, play word games and avoid too many mentions of the word. Instead of “abortion” it’s “right to choose.” And don’t even get me started on how they object to being called “pro-aborts” – oddly by saying that asserting such things means they are “pro-abortion.” Yeah, I can’t figure that one out, either.

If this were any other issue it would be laughable, but considering the subject matter, it’s not. It’s really not funny the wool these “feminist” liberals try to pull over the eyes of the American people, especially women – and even more especially young women who are easily influenced by what they hear on TV, what they read in liberal media newspapers, etc. And perhaps the most sickening thing of all is how, for decades, liberal Democrat pro-abort women have raised millions and millions of dollars of campaign cash on the backs of 44 million aborted babies.

With the House’s Protect Life Act, pro-life medical providers can perform their duties without the issue of abortion weighing on their consciences. Pro-aborts, on the other hand, have pretty much made it clear that when it comes to a conscience, they simply do not have one.

In case you don’t care to sit through the video, the young woman talks about how she had gotten pregnant, had a baby, and got pregnant again 9 months later and didn’t have the money to raise another baby, and struggled to find the money to abort her second child.

I pray for young women like this one, that they one day see the light.

Courtesy of the pro-teen sex site “Advocates for Youth” by way of the “1 in 3 Campaign” – a campaign designed to encourage women to “come out of the closet” and feel no shame about their abortion(s) since allegedly, according to the 1 in 3 Campaign, 1 in 3 women “will have an abortion in their lifetime.”

BTW, the fireworks have started as LifeNews reported today that Congress will be investigating Planned Parenthood:

A Congressional committee has taken the first steps in investigating the Planned Parenthood abortion business over abuses ranging from financial disparities to its compliance with federal regulations on taxpayer funding to concerns that it is covering up cases of sex trafficking.

In a September 15 letter LifeNews.com obtained, Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican who is the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations, writes to Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood.

“Pursuant to Rules X and XI of the United States House of Representatives, the Committee on Energy and Commerce is examining the institutional practices and policies of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its affiliates, and its handing of federal funding,” Stearns writes. “That Committee has questions about the politics in place and actions undertaken by PPFA and its affiliates relating to its use of federal funding and its compliance with federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.”

Make sure to read the full article.

As you can expect, Democrats are outraged:

Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Diana DeGette of Colorado, both Democrats, responded to the Stearns letter with their own missive dated today complaining about the broad reach of the investigation and the documents requested, which they call “far-reaching.”

“We question the basis for the investigation and whether Planned Parenthood is being singled out as part of a Republican vendetta,” the Democrats claim, saying the request for extensive financial and policy documents is “extraordinarily broad and burdensome.”

“The letter asks Planned Parenthood and all 83 of its affiliates for internal audit reports covering up to a 12-year period, for state audits covering a 20-year-period, for detailed information about any improper billing, and for sensitive information about the services and referral practices of Planned Parenthood affiliates and clinics,” the letter reads. “We are aware of no predicate that would justify this sweeping and invasive request to Planned Parenthood.”

They claim previous audits by the HHS Inspector General and state Medicaid programs “have not identified any pattern of misuse of federal funds, illegal activity, or any other abuse that would justify a broad and invasive congressional investigation.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if they put as much passion into defending the lives of the unborn rather than protecting the “rights” of mothers of unborn children to terminate that life? Sigh …

Good news, reproductive rights advocates and neo-Malthusian environmentalists! Vice President Joe Biden has no problem with the government forcibly sterilizing people and compelling abortions. From his remarks at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China yesterday discussing the U.S. debt:

What we ended up doing is setting up a system whereby we did cut by $1.2 trillion upfront, the deficit over the next 10 years.  And we set up a group of senators that have to come up with another $1.2 to $1.7 trillion in savings or automatically there will be cuts that go into effect in January to get those savings.  So the savings will be accomplished.  But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China.  You have no safety net.  Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.  The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people.  Not sustainable.

So hopefully we can act in a way on a problem that’s much less severe than yours, and maybe we can learn together from how we can do that.

Moe Lane doesn’t think the Vice President meant that as a ringing endorsement of the brutal practice.   Nevertheless, he writes:

I’m sure that Biden didn’t actually mean to endorse the People Republic of China’s policy of population control via forced abortions; but he certainly meant to avoid making a moral judgement on the practice.  Which is, by the way, vile, disgusting, and not compatible with the reasonable expectations of moral behavior from a truly civilized nation-state.  I’d just thought that I’d pass that bit of cultural elitism along, since my country’s current leadership team is a bit too scared to.

Exactly. Wouldn’t want to offend the pro-abort lobby, would we?  On the other hand, this former Vice President and failed candidate for President has hinted around at the possibility of supporting a one-child policy right here in the US – in the interests of “saving the environment”, of course.

Just sayin’.

NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez has a must-read response/quote to Biden’s shocking, embarassing comments:

“It’s disappointing that Vice President Biden did not mention the severe women’s rights atrocities that are committed in the name of the One Child Policy — forced abortion, involuntary sterilization, and gendercide,” Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights without Frontiers, says. “China’s One Child Policy causes more violence to women and girls than any other official policy on earth. To merely mention the economic consequences is to turn a blind eye to the terrible human suffering caused by forced abortion. Chinese women are literally dragged out of their homes, strapped to tables and forced to abort.”

The policy, as it happens, has been not only a moral but a demographic disaster. “The One Child Policy was instituted for economic reasons,” Littlejohn adds. “It’s ironic that through this very policy, China has written it’s own economic, demographic death sentence.”

Let’s make sure the next White House administration gets all this, instead of kowtowing to our creditor.

Amen to that.  So much for being “pro-woman” and “pro-choice” – when you consider the fact that these women don’t have a choice.

Oh, c’mon, now – you didn’t really think Joe Biden would bring the foreign policy gravitas to the Obama-Biden ticket that  the MSM asserted he would, did you? 

As a result, the ultimate pro-death ruling was made thanks to the SCOTUS with the Roe vs. Wade decision, a decision that has led to the termination of over 40 million innocent unborn lives since 1973.

You’d think that with all I’ve read, heard, and watched on this issue that anything else I read/see/hear at this point will not faze me. But it does. And it has. Case in point: this New York Times Magazine piece about the growing practice of “twin reduction”- which is the fancy, sanitized term for “aborting one of the twins.” No, it’s not a popular thing to do in America – yet – but it’s a growing trend that once again should concern any moral-minded, warm-blooded American who views the little life growing inside a woman’s body as a human being rather than an expendable “clump of cells” or “parasite.” I’m going to paste a few quotes from the piece as I believe there has never been an article written that has so clearly demonstrated with crystal clarity the abject moral bankruptcy of the pro-abortion crowd by demonstrating their casual, bloodless approach to the process of aborting one of the twins a woman carries for, you guessed it, convenience purposes. My comments are below the quotes and passages I found particularly disturbing (bolded emphasis added by me):

As Jenny lay on the obstetrician’s examination table, she was grateful that the ultrasound tech had turned off the overhead screen. She didn’t want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though she could often think of little else. She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment — and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy fetuses, almost as if having half an abortion [Note: There's no "almost" about it! - ST]. As the doctor inserted the needle into Jenny’s abdomen, aiming at one of the fetuses, Jenny tried not to flinch, caught between intense relief and intense guilt.

“Things would have been different if we were 15 years younger or if we hadn’t had children already or if we were more financially secure,” she said later. “If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there’s a natural order, then you don’t want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner — in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me — and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.”

I’m sure the surviving twin will totally understand once they get older and the decision-making process on the issue of aborting his or her other half is explained to them. / sarc

Continuing:

What is it about terminating half a twin pregnancy that seems more controversial than reducing triplets to twins or aborting a single fetus? After all, the math’s the same either way: one fewer fetus. Perhaps it’s because twin reduction (unlike abortion) involves selecting one fetus over another, when either one is equally wanted. Perhaps it’s our culture’s idealized notion of twins as lifelong soul mates, two halves of one whole. Or perhaps it’s because the desire for more choices conflicts with our discomfort about meddling with ever more aspects of reproduction.

Or perhaps its the thought that either the parents or the doctor is making the decision as to which one lives and which one dies, knowingly terminating a life while another life is next to it developing – not that it really should be any more disturbing than the parents or the mother of the unborn child making the decision to abort a single fetus. Either way, it’s extinguishing the hearbeat of a developing baby, either via medicinal abortion or a vacuum abortion – where the baby is sucked out of the mother’s body piece by piece. Or is cut out by the “physician” piece by piece via a hook-type instrument.

I could go on but you get the picture.

That shift has made some doctors in the field uneasy, and many who perform pregnancy reductions refuse to go below twins. After being rebuffed by physicians close to home, Jenny went online and found Dr. Joanne Stone, the highly regarded head of Mount Sinai’s maternal-fetal-medicine unit. Jenny traveled thousands of miles to get there. She still resents the first doctor back home who told her she shouldn’t reduce twins and another who dismissively told her to just buck up and buy diapers in bulk.

Poor Jenny. Ticked off because some doctors out there apparently had more ethical and moral concerns about aborting one twin than she, the mother of the twins themselves, had. Pass the Kleenex, please. The world’s smallest violin is playing.

Even some people who support abortion rights admit to feeling queasy about reduction to a singleton. “I completely respect and support a woman’s choice,” one commentator wrote on UrbanBaby.com, referring to a woman who said she reduced her pregnancy to protect her marriage and finances. One fetus was male, the other female, and the woman eliminated the male because she already had a son. “Something about that whole situation just seemed unethical to me,” the commentator continued. “I just couldn’t sleep at night knowing that I terminated my daughter’s perfectly healthy twin brother.”

In retrospect, loving her daughter as I’m sure she does, she probably couldn’t sleep at night knowing that she terminated her own daughter had it been a single child pregnancy, either, but of course I doubt she thought of that dreadful scenario since she “respects” the “right to choose” – it’s surprising that some aborts even have a moral compass when it comes to the issue of the unborn. This one, at least, draws the line at twin reduction. Thank goodness.

Stay with me on this next one. It’s longish but a must-read as it’s about a doctor’s “evolving” perspective on twin reduction:

Dr. Mark Evans, an obstetrician and geneticist, was among the first to reduce a pregnancy. He quickly became one of the procedure’s most visible and busiest practitioners, as well as one of the most prolific authors on the topic. Early on, Evans decided the industry needed guidelines, and in 1988, he and an ethicist with the National Institutes of Health issued them. One of their central tenets was that most reductions below twins violated ethical principles.

Two years later, as demand for twin reductions climbed, Evans published another journal article, arguing that reduction to singletons “crosses the line between doing a procedure for a medical indication versus one for a social indication.” He urged his colleagues to resist becoming “technicians to our patients’ desires.”

The justification for eliminating some fetuses in a multiple pregnancy was always to increase a woman’s chance of bringing home a healthy baby, because medical risks rise with every fetus she carries. The procedure, which is usually performed around Week 12 of a pregnancy, involves a fatal injection of potassium chloride into the fetal chest. The dead fetus shrivels over time and remains in the womb until delivery. Some physicians found reduction unnerving, particularly because the procedure is viewed under ultrasound, making it quite visually explicit, which is not the case with abortion. Still, even some doctors who opposed abortion agreed that it was better to save some fetuses than risk them all.

Through the early 1990s, the medical consensus was that reducing pregnancies of quadruplets or quintuplets clearly improved the health of the woman and her offspring. Doctors disagreed about whether to reduce those to triplets or twins and about whether to reduce triplet gestations at all. But as ultrasound equipment improved and doctors gained technical expertise, the procedure triggered fewer miscarriages, and many doctors concluded that reducing a triplet gestation to twins was safer than a triplet birth. Going below twins, though, was usually out of the question.

In 2004, however, Evans publicly reversed his stance, announcing in a major obstetrics journal that he now endorsed twin reductions. For one thing, as more women in their 40s and 50s became pregnant (often thanks to donor eggs), they pushed for two-to-one reductions for social reasons. Evans understood why these women didn’t want to be in their 60s worrying about two tempestuous teenagers or two college-tuition bills. He noted that many of the women were in second marriages, and while they wanted to create a child with their new spouse, they did not want two, especially if they had children from a previous marriage. Others had deferred child rearing for careers or education, or were single women tired of waiting for the right partner. Whatever the particulars, these patients concluded that they lacked the resources to deal with the chaos, stereophonic screaming and exhaustion of raising twins.

Evans’s new position wasn’t just a reaction to changing demographics. The calculus of risks had also changed. For one thing, he argued, in experienced hands like his, the procedure rarely prompted a miscarriage. For another, recent studies had revealed that the risks of twin pregnancies were greater than previously thought. They carried an increased chance of prematurity, low birth weight and cerebral palsy in the babies and gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia in the mother. Marking what he called a “juncture in the cultural evolution of human understanding of twins,” Evans concluded that “parents who choose to reduce twins to a singleton may have a higher likelihood of taking home a baby than pregnancies remaining with twins.” He became convinced that everyone carrying twins, through reproductive technology or not, should at least know that reduction was an option. “Ethics,” he said, “evolve with technology.”

“Ethics evolve with technology.” That single chilling quote says it all when it comes to the mindset of pro-aborts, doesn’t it? It’s sort of like the concept of a “living, breathing Constitution.” “Evolution” clearly is not always a good thing.

Many doctors, including some who do reduction to a singleton, dispute Evans’s conclusions, pointing out that while twin pregnancies carry more risks than singleton pregnancies, most twins (especially fraternal) do just fine. Dr. Richard Berkowitz, a perinatologist at Columbia University Medical Center who was an early practitioner of pregnancy reduction, says: “The overwhelming majority of women carrying twins are going to be able to deliver two healthy babies.” Though Berkowitz insists that there is no clear medical benefit to reducing below twins, he will do it at a patient’s request. “In a society where women can terminate a single pregnancy for any reason — financial, social, emotional — if we have a way to reduce a twin pregnancy with very little risk, isn’t it legitimate to offer that service to women with twins who want to reduce to a singleton?”

Indeed – and along with that goes with the ability to abort based on cosmetic reasons as well, such as the baby’s sex, race, whether or not it has any health issues and/or deformities, etc. Why, Designer Babies is a good thing in our “evoloving” society where “choice” is so celebrated by elites, is it not?

Moving right along:

Evans estimates that the majority of doctors who perform reductions will not go below twins. Shelby Van Voris was pregnant with triplets when she discovered this for herself. After she and her husband tried for three years to get pregnant, they went to a fertility doctor near their home in Savannah, Ga. He put Shelby, then 30, on fertility drugs, and when that didn’t work, he ramped things up with injections. By then, her husband, a 33-year-old Army officer, had been deployed to Iraq. He left behind three vials of sperm, and she was artificially inseminated. “You do weird things when mortars are flying at your husband’s head,” she said. She soon found out she was carrying triplets. Frantic, she yelled at the doctor: “This is not an option for us! I want only one!”

Her fertility specialist referred her to a doctor in Atlanta who did reductions. But when Shelby called, the office manager told her that she would have to pay extra for temporary staff to assist with the procedure, because the regular staff refused to reduce pregnancies below twins. She contacted three more doctors, and in each case was told: not below two. “It was horrible,” she says. “I felt like the pregnancy was a monster, and I just wanted it out, but because we tried for so long, abortion wasn’t an option. My No. 1 priority was to be the best mom I could be, but how was I supposed to juggle two newborns or two screaming infants while my husband was away being shot at? We don’t have family just sitting around waiting to get called to help me with a baby.”

Eventually, she heard about Evans and flew to New York for the procedure. “I said, ‘You choose whoever is going to be safe and healthy,’ ” she says. “I didn’t give him any other criteria. I didn’t choose gender. None of that was up for grabs, because I had to make it as ethically O.K. for me as I could. But I wanted only one.”

She paid $6,500 for the reduction and left Evans’s office incredibly relieved. “I went out on that street with my mother and jumped up and down saying: ‘I’m pregnant! I’m pregnant!’ And then I went and bought baby clothes for the first time.”

Today, her daughter is 2½ years old. Shelby intends to tell her about the reduction someday, to teach her that women have choices, even if they’re sometimes difficult. “I am the mother of a very demanding toddler,” she says. “I can’t imagine this times two, and not ever knowing if I’d have another person here to help me. This is what I can handle. I’m good with this. But that’s all.”

What Shelby should tell her daughter when she’s of age to find out is how only some women have choices – those whose mothers decide to keep them, unlike Shelby, who didn’t want to bother with the details of which two of her girl triplets were aborted because she supposedly wanted to make it as “ethical” as possible in her mind. In reality, she likely wanted to avoid direct responsiblity for making the decision as to which two of her developing, live babies were going to shrivel up and die inside her body by her doctor’s hand because of her “choice.” Doesn’t sound like she feels too guilty about it, does she?

And here I thought – per pro-aborts – that the decision to terminate the life inside your body was such an “agonizing” one.

Consider the choice of which fetus to eliminate: if both appear healthy (which is typical with twins), doctors aim for whichever one is easier to reach. If both are equally accessible, the decision of who lives and who dies is random. To the relief of patients, it’s the doctor who chooses — with one exception. If the fetuses are different sexes, some doctors ask the parents which one they want to keep.

Whew! Isn’t that a load off the mind? – knowing that you, who have decided that one is enough and that the other life growing inside your body is expendable – will not have to worry about little things like which life your doctor decides to take? It’s sort of like not wanting to look at the ultrasound, which is noted in the article in several places, including this one:

One of [Dr.] Stone’s patients, a New York woman, was certain that she wanted to reduce from twins to a singleton. Her husband yielded because she would be the one carrying the pregnancy and would stay at home to raise them. They came up with a compromise. “I asked not to see any of the ultrasounds,” he said. “I didn’t want to have that image, the image of two. I didn’t want to torture myself. And I didn’t go in for the procedure either, because less is more for me.” His wife was relieved that her husband remained in the waiting room; she, too, didn’t want to deal with his feelings.

Not wanting to make the “choice” as to which one lives or dies and/or not wanting to view the ultrasound makes a parent feel less responsible, less guilty for what they’ve advocated with their deadly decision.

It’s a way of avoiding the reality of the “choice” to abort a life growing inside of you or your s/o. “I won’t look at the ultrasound because I don’t want to have any second thoughts. I won’t make the decision as to which baby dies and which one lives because I don’t want the choice to make me reconsider my position” seems to be the operative mindset at play here. Disturbing.

That was the thinking of Dr. Naomi Bloomfield, an obstetrician near Albany who found out she was pregnant with twins when her first child was not quite a year old. “I couldn’t have imagined reducing twins for nonmedical reasons,” she said, “but I had an amnio and would have had an abortion if I found out that one of the babies had an anomaly, even if it wasn’t life-threatening. I didn’t want to raise a handicapped child. Some people would call that selfish, but I wouldn’t. Parents who abort for an anomaly just don’t want that life for themselves, and it’s their prerogative to fashion their lives how they want. Is terminating two to one really any different morally?”

The indifference to human life in this piece is staggering – almost literally – to me,and I say that as someone who, again, has read/heard/watched a lot of information on this topic. Thank God none of our parents viewed us – twins or not – with the same cold, clinical detachment as these “mothers” (and most pro-aborts in general) viewed the pregnancy process. Once again, the “pro-choice” culture of death is exposed for what it is: bloodless, soulless – and most of all, heartless. Think about these vain, selfish people next time you read about a mother and father who eagerly wanted to carry a twin pregnancy to term but lost one at birth due to delivery issues or unexpected health complications. My heart goes out to them. To pro-twin reduction types, I have nothing but contempt. All you have to do is to look at an ultrasound of week 14 twins to understand why:

So beautiful. So active. And so alive.

Let’s hope Jenny and Shelby don’t see this.

(NYT Magazine link courtesy of Jon P. Sanders.)

From Lila’s site:

June 29, 2011 – Undercover phone calls released today show Planned Parenthood of Indiana clinics admitting that they are not the only source of women’s health care for women on Medicaid. Planned Parenthood and its supporters have recently argued in support of restoring their Medicaid funding in Indiana that poor women will lose access to vital health care services if they cannot go to Planned Parenthood. Live Action, the group that recorded the calls, says its footage shows the reality is quite the opposite.

“Indiana has become Ground Zero in the national battle to defund Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion business in America,” states Live Action President Lila Rose. “As more and more states, most recently Wisconsin and Texas, continue to defund the abortion giant of millions of dollars, Planned Parenthood wants us to believe they are the only game in town when it comes to providing care for Medicaid patients. In reality, their own staff admit that they aren’t the only option for women in need.”

In an official press release, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards claimed that Indiana’s defunding of Planned Parenthood would “take away health care from thousands of women in Indiana.” Last week, Live Action’s undercover investigators called 16 of the 28 Indiana Planned Parenthood clinics posing as women on Medicaid concerned about where they could receive services if Planned Parenthood’s funding was not restored.

Planned Parenthood staffers at all 16 locations admitted that Medicaid women would still have access to medical care after the defunding. Staffers suggested local health clinics or state-assigned primary care physicians for Medicaid patients: “Your primary care doctor should be able to do [a Well Woman exam,] I mean, that’s what they’re there for,” said a Planned Parenthood in Michigan City, while the Merrillville Planned Parenthood said of a local community health center, “They have the same services we have.”

“According to Planned Parenthood’s own statistics, their 28 clinics serve less than 1% of Indiana Medicaid patients, yet they do more than 50% of Indiana abortions,” notes Rose. There are over 800 other Medicaid providers available to these women in the counties with Planned Parenthood clinics alone.”

I really can’t think of anything truthful Planned Parenthood has said in the entire debate over federal and state funding for their clinics. The most outrageous lies are the ones like Rose debunks above, and the one about how “poor women will lose access to birth control” if Planned Parenthood loses their taxpayer funding, which I easily debunked here:

1. Birth control is available over the counter at your local Walgreen’s and – for that matter – your local corner convenience store: It’s called condoms. Drug stores and convenience stores are in poor neighborhoods just like they are everywhere else.

2. Eliminating taxpayer funding for these clinics would *not* mean the clinics would go broke. It would force the likes of Planned Parenthood to divvy up their funds differently, where ‘tough’ choices would have to be made and a balance would have to be modified when it comes how much money they devote to their non-abortion services versus how much they devote to “abortion care” (now, there’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one!). In other words, Planned Parenthood, in order to provide “health services” for low income women, might have to decrease the amount of money spent on abortions and put more of that money into other services they provide.

Never trust a militant “feminist.” Ever. They almost always deliberately lie, deceive, and mislead on the issue of abortion – but hey, you don’t have to believe me. Read the late Bernard Nathanson’s admissions on the false rationale for the start of the abortion movement. Nathanson, a former ‘male feminist’ of sorts who passed away this past February at the age of 84, was a co-founder of NARAL who saw the light on abortion after ultrasounds became available. Snippets:

“In 1968 I met Lawrence Lader,” says Nathanson. “Lader had just finished a book called ‘Abortion,’ and in it had made the audacious demand that abortion should be legalized throughout the country. I had just finished a residency in obstetrics and gynecology and was impressed with the number of women who were coming into our clinics, wards and hospitals suffering from illegal, infected, botched abortions.

“Lader and I were perfect for each other. We sat down and plotted out the organization now known as NARAL. With Betty Friedan, we set up this organization and began working on the strategy.”

“We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one,” recalls the movement’s co-founder. “Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1 million.

“Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans, convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law.

“Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1,500 percent since legalization.”

NARAL’s brilliantly deceitful marketing campaign, bolstered by fraudulent “research,” was uncannily successful. In New York, the law outlawing abortion had been on the books for 140 years. “In two years of work, we at NARAL struck that law down,” says Nathanson. “We lobbied the legislature, we captured the media, we spent money on public relations … Our first year’s budget was $7,500. Of that, $5,000 was allotted to a public relations firm to persuade the media of the correctness of our position. That was in 1969.”

A movement based on a steady stream of lies, one that still has to manipulate words and their definitions, and lie and deceive about statistics in order to keep the “right to choose” legal. If one has to repeatedly lie regarding just about every aspect of what their movement is about, that tells me alot about that movement – and none of it good. In this case, it’s especially horrifying because we’re talking about the lives of the unborn – America’s most vulnerable.

Abortion advocates truly have no shame at all. No shame whatsoever. Tragic.

GREENSBORO – Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed a bill that would have imposed a waiting period and other restrictions on women seeking abortions during a stop in Greensboro this afternoon.

Republican lawmakers, who control both the House and Senate, say the bill is necessary to ensure that women seeking abortions get complete information about the procedure. But opponents have said the proposed law would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship.

This is the 10th veto of the year for Perdue, a Democrat. That total equals the tally of all other vetoes issued between when North Carolina governors first got the power to reject bills in 1997 through 2010. This year also marks the first time a governor with veto powers has faced a General Assembly completely controlled by a different political party.

As to whether or not this veto can be overridden, it’s not a sure thing – not even with a GOP majority in the state legislature:

The big veto was H854, the bill that would have required a waiting period, an ultrasound, and special counseling before an abortion. Gov. Perdue is pro-choice, so it wasn’t a big surprise that she vetoed it. The question now is whether the Democrats will uphold it. Three of the Party of Five – Reps Brisson, Spear and Hill – voted for the bill in the House. Republicans would need to pick up at least one more Democratic vote to override the veto.

Which means the bill will probably have to be watered down, vetoed again, and then overriden before it would be able to become law.

I should point out that back in May Perdue signed into law a bill that would protect unborn children from injury and death at the hands of a violent criminal. Kinda interesting that it’s a crime to injury or kill an unborn baby if you’re not an abortion doctor but it’s ok to hurt and kill the unborn fetus with the mother’s permission.

Just sayin’.

Anyway, here’s a list of the 84 bills that were on the table today, and how Perdue addressed them: 2 vetoes, 2 not signed, and 80 signed into law. Last week she vetoed the Voter ID bill. It’s unclear at this point whether the GOP will attempt an override.

Perdue’s campaign informally declared late last year that she will seek re-election in 2012. Her approval numbers in this state have been under 40% for well over a year now. Unless the economy does a miraculous turn-around she, like our celebrity President, could face a tough re-election year.

Related Reading:

• Life News – North Carolina Governor Perdue Vetoes Pro-Life Abortion Bill

Raleigh, N.C. — North Carolina lawmakers debated Thursday about whether the projected costs for additional requirements before an abortion is performed are worth it.

House Bill 854 “Abortion–Women’s Right to Know,” sponsored by Republican Reps. Ruth Samuelson and Patricia McElraft, would require that doctors provide counseling, an ultrasound and a 24-hour waiting period before performing an abortion.

Legislative fiscal staff estimated the bill would result in nearly 2,900 more births a year, based on results from a similar law in Mississippi. Those births could cost the state approximately $7 million a year in Medicaid cost, staffers estimated.

Supporters of the bill said fewer abortions and more births are worth that cost.

“To me, it is incredible that we would even debate the idea that somehow we can improve the fiscal impact of this state by not allowing children to be born,” Rep. Burt Jones, an independent from Rockingham, said. “I’m a fiscal conservative, but if we’ve got to pay a little more money in this state because more children have the right to be born, then so be it.”

Opponents of the bill said it’s not necessary to force women making an emotional decision through a longer process.

“Most women have thought about having an abortion. It’s not something that I would think that they would take lightly,” Rep. Beverly Earle, D-Mecklenburg, said. “I think it’s a true insult to women to imply or say that they don’t know what they’re doing.”

This is your standard liberal feminist cop-out. The goal is to make people believe that pro-lifers consider women who are going to have an abortion ‘too stupid’ to know what’s going to happen when they go in for an abortion. It’s not really that pro-lifers consider women who are considering having an abortion ‘stupid’; it’s more along the lines of wanting to make sure she’s fully informed and not partially informed. And, to turn Ms. Earle’s argument around on her, if women “know what they’re doing” when they go in for an abortion, why the need to have counseling for it at all? Just go in, get it done, get it over with, and get back to life minus the little ‘inconvenience’ – right? No need for Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider to waste their precious money on something women apparently already are fully informed about – correct?

Furthermore, if Ms. Earle really wanted to let loose on a group of people who treated women as if they were too stupid to know what they’re doing, then she should look no further than her fellow pro-aborts, who shamelessly try to “win” the debate on the public funding of “family planning clinics” on the grounds that poor women won’t have access to birth control if those clinics no longer get taxpayer money. Of course, she and other liberal feminists like her would never admit such truths because of the following inconvenient facts:

1. Birth control is available over the counter at your local Walgreen’s and – for that matter – your local corner convenience store: It’s called condoms. Drug stores and convenience stores are in poor neighborhoods just like they are everywhere else.
2. Eliminating taxpayer funding for these clinics would *not* mean the clinics would go broke. It would force the likes of Planned Parenthood to divvy up their funds differently, where ‘tough’ choices would have to be made and a balance would have to be modified when it comes how much money they devote to their non-abortion services versus how much they devote to “abortion care” (now, there’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one!). In other words, Planned Parenthood, in order to provide “health services” for low income women, might have to decrease the amount of money spent on abortions and put more of that money into other services they provide.

This has been the argument conservatives have been making all along: That even though federal tax dollars can’t legally be used to pay for abortions, that tax money DOES free up the private money donated to the clinics for use in the termination of unborn children.

But why bother with pesky things like the facts when emotion-based, fact-challenged “pro-woman” rants like this one are so much easier?

How ironic it was that Rep. Earle, who clearly isn’t fully informed on the issue herself, was the one passionately arguing that women shouldn’t be treated as if they “don’t know what they are doing.” Can’t make this stuff up …

Having been in the trenches in the 1970s when the legalization of abortion came about in New York state and the in-pouring of desperate women from all over the United States and Canada occurred, I can tell you firsthand that women will continue to have and need abortions regardless of the laws promulgated by men for political purposes to satisfy their right-wing constituents.

So many of the people who today are against abortion have had or would have this procedure if the circumstances were on a personal basis.

So many rabid anti-abortion people saw the light after their unwanted pregnancy problem was solved, but now want to expiate their guilt by being on the front lines of the pro-life movement.

I find it the height of hypocrisy that these people would kill a doctor who performs abortions but restrict food and health aid to babies once born. Right to life?

It’s really hard to know where to start with this one, but I should point out that this staunch advocate for abortion, who slams abortions laws that – by the faulty description above – were “promulgated by men” (as if there’s no such thing as an elected female pro-lifer) is a man himself who has probably never been told by “feminists” that his opinion doesn’t count … because he’s “pro-choice.” You see, it’s ok to be a man and voice your opinion on the issue, and advocate pro-abortion laws as long as your opinion falls squarely in line with that of the rad-fems, whose belief is that abortion should not be restricted in any circumstance … including partial-birth abortions, for two reasons: 1) they believe any restriction on abortion is a “back door attempt by the right to slowly erode the ‘rights’ of a woman to ‘choose’”, and 2) most of them don’t view the unborn child as an actual human being until it’s not only been born, but it’s been declared healthy enough to live (an opinion shared by our celebrity President, BTW).

As to the issue of “killing a doctor”, first things first: Um, New Tone - where? Secondly, the guy can’t be stupid enough to really think that the vast majority of pro-lifers condoned the murder of Dr. Tiller. On the other hand, over 50 million babies have been aborted since Roe v. Wade was decided, giving a woman the “right” to terminate the beating heart of her unborn child without limits up until the point of viability – around 24 weeks.

Pro-aborts like to point out – as if it makes a shred of difference – that the vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester. While this is true, what they don’t point out, and try very hard to prevent you and pregnant women considering abortion from knowing, is not only the fetal development of a 1st trimester unborn child but also the most common abortion performed during the first tri: vacuum aspiration. First, let’s take a look at the fetal development that takes place during the 1st tri:

Week 3 – Gestational Age (Fetal Age – Week 1): The embryo is going through lots of basic growth at this time, with the beginning development of the brain, spinal cord, heart, and gastrointestinal tract.

Week 4 & 5 – Gestational Age (Fetal Age – Weeks 2 & 3): Arm and leg buds are visible, but not clearly distinguishable. The heart is now beating at a steady rhythm. The placenta has begun to form and is producing some important hormones including hCG. There is movement of rudimentary blood through the main vessels. The early structures that will become the eyes and ears are forming. The embryo is ¼ inch long by the end of these weeks.

Week 6 – Gestational Age (Fetal Age – Week 4): The formation of the lungs, jaw, nose, and palate begin now. The hand and feet buds have webbed structures that will become the fingers and toes. The brain is continuing to form into its complex parts. A vaginal ultrasound could possibly detect an audible heartbeat at this time. The embryo is about a ½ inch in length.

Week 7 – Gestational Age (Fetal Age – Week 5): At 7 weeks gestation, every essential organ has begun to form in the embryo’s tiny body even though it still weighs less than an aspirin. The hair and nipple follicles are forming, and the eyelids and tongue have begun formation. The elbows and toes are more visible as the trunk begins to straighten out.

Week 8 – Gestational Age (Fetal Age – Week 6): The ears are continuing to form externally and internally. Everything that is present in an adult human is now present in the small embryo. The bones are beginning to form, and the muscles can contract. The facial features continue to mature, and the eyelids are now more developed. The embryo is at the end of the embryonic period and begins the fetal period. The embryo is about 1 inch long and is the size of a bean.

Weeks 9 thru 13 – Gestational Age (Fetal Age – Weeks 7 thru 11): The fetus has grown to about 3 inches in length and weighs about an ounce. The genitalia have clearly formed into male or female, but still could not be seen clearly on an ultrasound. The eyelids close and will not reopen until the 28th week of pregnancy. The fetus can make a fist, and the buds for baby teeth appear. The head is nearly half the size of the entire fetus.

Now, let’s take a look at what happens during a vacuum aspiration abortion:

ASPIRATION ABORTION — THE MOST COMMON KIND OF IN-CLINIC ABORTION

During an aspiration abortion

• Your health care provider will examine your uterus.
• You will get medicine for pain. You may be offered sedation — a medicine that allows you to be awake but deeply relaxed.
• A speculum will be inserted into your vagina.
• Your health care provider may inject a numbing medication into or near your cervix.
• The opening of your cervix may be stretched with dilators — a series of increasingly thick rods. Or you may have absorbent dilators inserted a day or a few hours before the procedure. They will absorb fluid and get bigger. This slowly stretches open your cervix. Medication may also be used with or without the dilators to help open your cervix.
• You will be given antibiotics to prevent infection.
• A tube is inserted through the cervix into the uterus.
• Either a hand-held suction device or a suction machine gently empties your uterus.
• Sometimes, an instrument called a curette is used to remove any remaining tissue that lines the uterus. It may also be used to check that the uterus is empty. When a curette is used, people often call the abortion a D&C — dilation and curettage.

It gets even worse during a second trimester abortion, which I’ve written about here.

So, with that in mind, let’s review: The vast majority of pro-lifers, both male and female, elected and average Joe/Jane Citizens, vocally condemned the murder of partial birth abortionist Dr. Tiller.  On the other hand, the vast majority of pro-aborts applaud, encourage, celebrate, and recommend that women who don’t want their baby for any reason have an abortion procedure done, an inhumane, groteseque procedure which includes sucking out the developing baby parts piece by piece and extinguishing the unborn child’s heartbeat forever.   Pretty disturbing, considering that liberals believe that we shouldn’t put to death brutal murderers on death row because the various punishments, including lethal injection and the gas chamber, are – to them – considered “cruel and unusual punishment” and are therefore “unconstitutional.”  We must show mercy to murderers and no mercy (or at most “optional mercy”) to the unborn.

Now that’s the “height of hypocrisy.”

And yet pro-lifers are the ones who are “extremists.” Go figure …

RALEIGH, N.C. — Suspects accused of causing a fetus to die or injuring it inside the womb at any stage of development would face separate criminal charges under a law Gov. Beverly Perdue has signed.

The measure Perdue signed on Friday doesn’t apply to legal abortions but does convey legal status upon fetuses unable to survive outside their mother’s womb.

The Democratic governor said twice in a statement that she strongly supports abortion rights, but “I do support punishing any person who would attack or kill a pregnant woman. I sign this bill today to show that support.”

“I have children of my own, and grandchildren,” Perdue said.

“I know the powerful instinct of a mother to protect her children, and I know how I would feel if anyone had harmed my daughters-in-law or me when we were pregnant.”

When the bill takes effect Dec. 1, North Carolina will join 35 other states and the federal government in recognizing an unborn child as an additional victim of crime. Laws in nearly two dozen states say crimes against the fetus can come at any time after conception, like the North Carolina law does.

Republicans have sought the additional protections for several years and took advantage of their majority in both chambers this year to push through the law that supporters say would punish people for harm caused to expectant babies. Opponents said the measure was a gift to conservatives who believe life begins at conception.

Rep. Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth, was one of the chief sponsors of the measure known as Ethen’s law. It was named for the unborn son of Jennifer Nielsen, who was killed along with her child in 2007 as she delivered newspapers in Raleigh. Nielsen’s father, Kevin Blaine, has pushed for years for the bill.

It’s about time, although it’s kinda interesting that – once again – we have a law on the books here in the states that essentially says that if the baby is unwanted and the mother goes to an abortion clinic to terminate “the problem”, then it’s not a crime. But if the baby IS wanted and is harmed by a violent offender, it is considered a crime.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad the law will go onto the books later this year. But it’s worth pointing out that “is it a baby or not” is in the eye of the beholder, depending on whether or not the unborn baby is wanted.

Oh, and this law was brought to you courtesy of the new Republican majority in the NC state legislature. Keep up the good work, y’all.