Saturday - October 25, 2008

Wasted Effort

Something other than McCain / Obama Politics

On Tuesday, November 4, the citizens of South Dakota will vote on the most restrictive abortion law in the country. Dr. Allen Unruh of VoteYesForLife.com says the opponents have launched a major battle against the pro-life measure. “Planned Parenthood is bringing in Barbara Streisand,” he explains. “They’re filling the airwaves with deceptive ads that are lies, and we’re going to attack for false and misleading advertising.”

The opponents of the abortion ban have raised almost double the amount of money for their campaign as the pro-life side has. So far, the pro-life campaign has not been able to buy advertising to combat it. “We haven’t had the funds to get on the air war,” Dr. Unruh adds. “This whole war on our side has been on the ground up until now, but it’s critical that we overcome their lies and deception.”
pregnancy illustration
Opponents in South Dakota have received a majority of their campaign’s funding from other states because, according to CNSNews.com, this ban could become a national concern. Leslee Unruh, executive director of VoteYesForLife.com, is thrilled at the idea that South Dakota would be the first “abortion-free state.”

“We are asking Christians all across America to stand up and be counted to say, ‘You know what, I want to make a difference. This is one place where I can make a difference,’” Dr. Unruh adds.

Read the rest over at One New Snow

This bill is known as Measure 11 on the South Dakota ballot. It is what is called an Initiated constitutional amendment.

The ballot entry for Measure 11 will state

For the actual text of the measure click here

This is not the first time such a measure has come up in South Dakota. It was voted down 3 years ago. Even if this measure should pass, how will it be able to stand up against Roe v. Wade? I don’t think it can. Federal law trumps state law. Period.

Running over to CNN for a bit of background ...

Public opinion on abortion has remained remarkably stable over the years. A CNN/Opinion Research survey in October found 36 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances, 40 percent believe it should be available in a few circumstances, such as to save the mother’s life, and 22 percent say abortion should never be legal. That is almost unchanged in the past 15 years.

Justices William Rehnquist, Byron White and Anthony Kennedy said they would allow restrictions on abortion, but only if the restrictions had a rational basis. More important, the three conservative justices said a compelling government interest need not be required to justify restrictions on abortion. That was a blow for anti-abortion forces.

Then came the Planned Parenthood ruling, in which the justices clearly outlined their views on Roe. The decision (also 5-4) reaffirmed the heart of Roe while giving states the power to regulate procedures so long as they did not impose an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to abortion. The standard: Undue burden exists if “the purpose and effect is to place substantial obstacles in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.” The ruling left supporters on both sides of the issue dissatisfied, feeling it was ambiguous.

Sounds to me like making a general abortion a Class 4 Felony is an Undue Burden and then some. Sorry South Dakota, your Measure is doomed to failure.

At least two other states have issues pertaining to abortion on their ballots this fall.

• California is trying yet again - 3rd time in 4 years - to push through a parental notification bill


• Colorado is trying for an amendment that would “recognize the personhood” of a fertilized egg as a person. BIG implications on that one! On the ballots Initiative 36 will read
  Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as “person” is used in those provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?

So this perennial Conservative Issue is still in play. Yet another issue that somehow didn’t make an appearance in any of the big deal Presidential Debates.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/25/2008 at 09:06 PM   
Filed Under: • Abortion •  
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   Thursday - April 17, 2008

This is freakin sicko

UPDATE - Macker points out that this is a hoax.

Ok, Macker may be right. It may be a hoax. I went and read his link. I have some problems with the author’s arguments. I think he has an emotional barrier, because of his wife’s miscarriage, that causes him to cling to “proofs” that may not be totally valid:

• Impregnation via “turkey baster” does work. Perhaps not every time, perhaps it needs some assistance, and perhaps “turkey baster” is being used as a generic expression. But it can do the job.


• ‘herbal concoctions misleadingly called “abortifacient drugs”’ are not real drugs ... because the FDA hasn’t studied or regulated them. Which ignores that some shamans, herbalists, midwives and “witches” have known how to make concoctions that end pregnancy, in many many cultures, since before recorded history. Are these mixtures safe, are they 100% effective? Who knows. Probably not. But they exist and they have always existed. Do “urban legends” get passed down for so many generations that they were around before there was “urban”?


• The young woman involved couldn’t have done this because of the psychological pain involved. Generally I’d like to agree on this one, but I can’t. Watch the news any day and you’ll see stories of kids inflicting the cruelest kinds of pain on other people just for kicks. I posted just the other day about a woman who got her boyfriend to break her leg just so they could fake a lawsuit. While I can’t stomach the idea of punching holes through parts of my body to hang jewelry from, billions of people do. Tattoos are very popular, though there is no way I’m letting some guy go at me with needles. Lasik surgery? Hells no, you ain’t going after my eyes with a knife and a laser beam! Granted that these may be minor examples, but they show several ways that “normal” people are willing to do unnatural things to their bodies for artistic and ‘amedical’ reasons. A young woman with a very leftist mindset and a post-feminist approach to life (ie an art student at college) could easily go through multiple abortions for “art” because losing a zygote would be no more earth-shattering to her than moving her bowels.

However, the author makes an update, and links to an article in the NY Sun that says Yale says that this is all a scam.

Yeah, well, that’s what you’d expect them to say isn’t it? Ivy League School plays Cover Your Ass at hypervelocity. Certainly Yale would never have a student this mentally twisted. Wanna bet? What kind of over-the-horizon ideas do Yale students come up with from time to time? The Sun article tells us about a molecular biology professor there:

A science student of Mr. Silver’s once proposed impregnating herself with chimpanzee sperm. Mr. Silver convinced her it was a “horrible thing for her to do,” but his fictionalized account of the event became a book and a play.

So what’s the takeaway here? It is possible that this woman did what she did. It is possible that it’s a made up story. The only thing for sure is that articles in the Yale newspaper now have to be taken with a larger grain of salt.

LATEST UPDATE: “Artist" stands by her story? Or is she playing coy just for publicity?

Shvarts stood by her project, calling the University’s statement “ultimately inaccurate.”… Shvarts reiterated Thursday that she repeatedly use a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, she said. She said she does not know whether or not she was ever pregnant.

“No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen,” Shvarts said, “because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.”

Oh brother. This is one screwed up young woman. Anything for attention?

This afternoon, Shvarts showed the News footage from tapes she plans to play at the exhibit. The tapes depict Shvarts — sometimes naked, sometimes clothed — alone in a shower stall bleeding into a cup.

Oy, such ART.
And the really Big Lie?

She said her endeavor was not conceived with any “shock value” in mind ... it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.

I suggest that the entire concept of “performance art” be tossed in the trash. Dance, Theater, and maybe a few episodes of “Punk’d” should cover things. I’m starting to think that “performance art” to “start a discussion” relates to real art about the same way that puns relate to good literature. It’s just spoiled little children pitching a fit to get attention.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/17/2008 at 02:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Abortion • Art-Photography • Colleges-Professors • Insanity • Outrageous • Stoopid-People •  
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   Wednesday - May 02, 2007

Senator Snubbed

Meanwhile, out here in the Gateway City of the Midwest our new Senator is having problems with the church. It seems her liberal views on abortion and embryonic stem cell research do not please all of us out here. To heck with her liberal views. I just can’t stand to look at the woman. She makes Nancy Pelosi look like a centerfold. Where do Democrats find these hags?

I know, I know. That was tacky but I can’t help it. I worked hard to get Republican Jim Talent re-elected and was sorely disappointed when he lost the 2004 election by a whisker ... a whisker no doubt helped along with some rather devious activities by the liberal Democrats who control the city of St. Louis.

Here in Missouri we had ballot initiatives on stem cell research in the last election and the topic has not gone away. Midwesterners seem to be about evenly spilt, according to the polls. Abortion is also a hot button issue out here. McCaskill’s supporters are pretty much all in the liberal havens of downtown St. Louis and the University of Missouri at Columbia. The rest of our state is pretty much a red state.

McCaskill puzzles me the same way other Catholic liberals (John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi) puzzle me. The Catholic church has made a clear stand against abortion and embryonic stem cell research yet these Left wing-nuts openly defy their church with their positions. McCaskill even sends her daughter to a Catholic girls school and now her daughter is being placed in the embarrassing position of having to explain to her classmates why mommy won’t be showing up to inspire them with a graduation speech.

It seems to me that when it comes down to a choice between following their beliefs or following their base, there is really no decision to make. Getting elected trumps getting saved every time. How do you separate the politician from the religion? Should you? Too many questions - not enough answers ....

Senator Asked Not to Speak at Graduation
ST. LOUIS (AP) - May 2, 2007, 12:28 PM EDT

An invitation to Sen. Claire McCaskill to speak at her daughter’s graduation from a Roman Catholic high school was withdrawn because of her positions on abortion and stem cell research.

Students at all-girls St. Joseph’s Academy in the St. Louis suburb of Frontenac wanted to have McCaskill speak at their commencement this month, McCaskill spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh said Tuesday.

But the offer was rescinded last week. The president of St. Joseph’s, Sister Michaela Zahner, said she reluctantly made the decision after receiving a call from the St. Louis Archdiocese.

McCaskill narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Sen. Jim Talent last November in a race in which embryonic stem cell research was a key issue. A McCaskill ad featuring actor Michael J. Fox—swaying noticeably from the effects of Parkinson’s disease—drew nationwide attention.

Marsh said the senator, a Catholic, understands that her positions supporting abortion rights and stem cell research are different from those held by the church. The senator was told by the school that the decision came from Archbishop Raymond Burke, Marsh said.

“I’m disappointed that the archbishop has made this decision,” McCaskill said in a statement. “It does not diminish my respect and admiration for St. Joseph’s Academy, their faculty, and students.”

A spokeswoman for the archdiocese, Anne Steffens, said the decision was not made by the archbishop. But Zahner said an archdiocese policy forbidding a public forum for speakers who diverge from church teaching clearly reflects Burke’s position.

While St. Joseph’s is a private, rather than an archdiocesan school, it receives its right to be identified as a Catholic institution through the archdiocese, Zahner said, adding that rescinding the invitation “was a very hard decision.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/02/2007 at 11:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Abortion • Democrats • Science-Technology •  
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   Sunday - April 22, 2007

SCOTUS Abortion Decision: Two Views

_{Brian Fairrington -
Cagle Cartoons}

_{RJ Matsen -
The St. Louis Post Dispatch}

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/22/2007 at 06:05 AM   
Filed Under: • Abortion • Judges-Courts •  
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   Wednesday - April 18, 2007

SCOTUS Upholds Abortion Law

The Supreme Court has just handed down a 5-4 decision upholding the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, which says it is NOT OK to force labor in the second or third trimester and when the baby starts to come out stick a fork in its head, stir its brains up and suck them out for disposal along with the rest of the dead baby. Does this mean we can go back to behaving like civilized human beings again ... ?

Court Backs Ban on Abortion Procedure
WASHINGTON (AP) - Apr 18, 10:30 AM (ET)

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act “have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court’s conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush’s two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority. It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how - not whether - to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions. More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday’s ruling.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an abortion can be performed. “Today’s decision is alarming,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling “refuses to take ... seriously” previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.” She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/18/2007 at 11:42 AM   
Filed Under: • Abortion •  
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   Monday - January 22, 2007

On This Day In History

Roe v. Wade: High Court Rules Abortions Legal the First 3 Months
_{(NEW YORK TIMES) - January 22, 1973}

The Supreme Court overruled today all state laws that prohibit or restrict a woman’s right to obtain an abortion during her first three months of pregnancy. The vote was 7 to 2.

In a historic resolution of a fiercely controversial issue, the Court drafted a new set of national guidelines that will result in broadly liberalized anti-abortion laws in 46 states but will not abolish restrictions altogether.

Establishing an unusually detailed timetable for the relative legal rights of pregnant women and the states that would control their acts, the majority specified the following:

For the first three months of pregnancy the decision to have an abortion lies with the woman and her doctor; and the state’s interest in her welfare is not “compelling” enough to warrant any interference.

For the next six months of pregnancy a state may “regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health,” such as licensing and regulating the persons and facilities involved.

For the last 10 weeks of pregnancy, the period during which the fetus is judged to be capable of surviving if born, any state may prohibit abortions if it wishes, except where they may be necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

Today’s action will not affect existing laws in New York, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington, where abortions are now legally available in the early months of pregnancy. But it will require rewriting of statutes in every other state.

The basic Texas case decided by the Court today will invalidate strict anti-abortion laws in 31 states; a second decision involving Georgia will require considerable rewriting of more liberal statutes in 15 others.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun wrote the majority opinion in which Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justices William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan Jr., Potter Stewart, Thurgood Marshall and Lewis F. Powell Jr. joined. Dissenting were Justices Byron R. White and William H. Rehnquist.

Justice White, calling the decision “an exercise of raw judicial power,” wrote that “the court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life which she carries.”

The Court’s decision was at odds with the expressed views of President Nixon. Last May, in a letter to Cardinal Cooke, he opposed “liberalized abortion policies” and spoke out for “the right to life of literally hundreds of thousands of unborn children.”

But three of the four Justices Mr. Nixon has appointed to the Supreme Court voted with the majority, with only Mr. Rehnquist dissenting. The majority rejected the idea that a fetus becomes a “person” upon conception and is thus entitled to the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Constitution. This view was pressed by opponents of liberalized abortion, including the Roman Catholic Church.

Justice Blackmun concluded that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the 14th Amendment, does not include the unborn,” although states may acquire, “at some point in time” of pregnancy, an interest in the “potential human life” that the fetus represents, to permit regulation.

It is that interest, the Court said, that permits states to prohibit abortion during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy, after the fetus has developed the capacity to survive.

In both cases decided today, the plaintiffs had based their protest on an assertion that state laws limiting the availability of abortion had circumscribed rights and freedoms guaranteed them by the Constitution: due process of law, equal protection of the laws, freedom of action and a particular privacy involving a personal and family matter.

In its decision on the challenge to the Georgia abortion law, the high court majority struck down several requirements that a woman seeking to terminate her pregnancy in that state would have to meet.

Both of today’s cases wound up with anonymous parties wining victories over state officials. In the Texas case, “Jane Roe,” an unmarried pregnant woman who was allowed to bring the case without further identity, was the only plaintiff after the Supreme Court disqualified a doctor and a childless couple who said that the wife’s health would be endangered by pregnancy.

In the Georgia case, the surviving plaintiff was “Mary Doe,” who, when she brought the action, was a 22-year-old married woman 11 weeks pregnant with her fourth child.

Today: The following graph is from: “Roe v. Wade: The divided states of America” (USA TODAY) - April 17, 2006

The procedure was recently banned in 2003 when the House and Senate passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (Public Law 108-105, HR 760, S 3) and was signed into law by President Bush.

In 2005, Norma McCorvey, who was the “Jane Roe” who challenged the Texas anti-abortion law in the famous case, appeared on “Hannity & Colmes” and described how she had become a born-again Christian and was working to pressure the Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision. In recent years, she has become a outspoken opponent of abortion, arguing that the procedure may harm women and goes against Christian teachings.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/22/2007 at 08:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Abortion • History •  
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   Monday - June 05, 2006

Most Ridiculous Item Of The Day (so far)

UNBELIEVABLE! Simply unbelievable. Woman goes to abortion clinic to get an abortion. The clinic screws up the abortion and a child is born with a hole in its heart and messed up lungs. So the mother sues the abortion clinic for damaging her child? You gotta be kidding me. Having an abortion is stupid enough but to sue the clinic when they mess it up?

It’s things like this that make me more and more convinced that abortion is wrong, very wrong. I’ve been on the fence on the abortion issue for decades. Personally, I do not consider it a choice for any child fathered by me but I’ve been willing to let others make the choice for themselves. Now I’m starting to change my mind. It’s time to repeal Roe v. Wade. This lunacy has gone far enough.

Court OKs Child’s Abortion Suit
_{June 5, 2006}

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER) - A state appeals court has ruled that a Birmingham abortion clinic can be sued over an unsuccessful abortion that a woman blames for damaging her child’s health. The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that had blocked a lawsuit filed by a woman on behalf of herself and her child. In a decision released May 26, the appeals court said the woman, identified only by her initials L.K.D.H., can sue Planned Parenthood of Alabama on behalf of her child.

Eric Johnston, a Birmingham attorney who has helped write many of the anti-abortion bills considered by the Legislature, said the decision is significant because it holds that a health care provider can be held responsible for injuries caused to a child in the womb. “The fact it was during an abortion doesn’t change that,” Johnston said. Larry Rodick, state director of Planned Parenthood, declined comment. Planned Parenthood attorney Eric Hoaglund said the decision is still under review and no decision has been made about the next step. He declined further comment.

The case involved a woman who went to Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinic in Birmingham. The abortion procedure was unsuccessful in ending her pregnancy, and she blamed the unsuccessful abortion for resulting in her daughter being born with injuries that included a hole in her heart and an inverted tube leading from her lungs to her heart, “causing her body not to be able to receive enough oxygen.”

Circuit Judge Robert Vance Jr. issued summary judgment in favor of the abortion clinic. The appeals court agreed with him that the mother couldn’t sue on her own behalf, but the five judges said she can sue on behalf of her child. “Neither the United States Supreme Court nor the Supreme Court of Alabama has ever ruled that a medical provider, or for that matter a mother, can engage, with some blanket of constitutional protection, in negligent or reckless conduct that deforms or injures a child so long as the deformity or injury is inflicted on the child before it leaves the womb,” Judge Glenn Murdock wrote.

To embrace that position would allow abortion clinics to operate “as carelessly or recklessly as they wish without bearing any responsibility. ... It would be hard to imagine a more troubling development in our law,” the judge wrote. Johnston said the ruling opens a narrow window because other Alabama court cases have held a woman can’t sue over a successful abortion and a child born healthy after an unsuccessful abortion can’t sue over “wrongful birth.”

The woman’s case was originally appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court, but the court transferred it to the Court of Civil Appeals. At least one member of the Court of Civil Appeals questioned the transfer in a concurring opinion. Judge Craig Pittman wrote that the state law providing for the transfer of cases says the Supreme Court should not transfer a case that presents a “novel legal question” that has “significant statewide impact.” Murdock, who wrote the main decision, is running in the Republican primary for the Alabama Supreme Court.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/05/2006 at 03:29 PM   
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   Tuesday - February 28, 2006

Supremes Nix RICO For Protesters

Typical liberal bullshit. Scream freedom of speech violation whenever anyone tries to tell them they’re full of crap. But if anyone protests against their agenda like abortion they file a lawsuit claiming racketeering and extortion to shut the opposition up.

I’m getting just about fed up with all this hypocricy from the Left. This whole lawsuit was absurd from the git-go and should have been thrown out of court when it first came to trial - and the jerks who filed this suit should have been sentenced to thirty days hard labor for disturbing the sanity of the entire human race.

What we’re talking about here is ... a failure ... to communicate ...

Supreme Court Backs Abortion Protesters
Feb 28 10:25 AM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON (BREITBART)

The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to abortion clinics in a two-decade-old legal fight over abortion protests, ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations.

Anti-abortion groups brought the appeal after the 7th Circuit had asked a trial judge to determine whether a nationwide injunction could be supported by charges that protesters had made threats of violence absent a connection with robbery or extortion

The 8-0 decision ends a case that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had kept alive despite a 2003 decision by the high court that lifted a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion groups led by Joseph Scheidler and others.

Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress did not intend to create “a freestanding physical violence offense” in the federal extortion law known as the Hobbs Act. Social activists and the AFL-CIO had sided with anti-abortion groups in arguing that similar lawsuits and injunctions could be used to thwart their efforts to change public policy or agitate for better wages and working conditions.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/28/2006 at 01:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Abortion • Judges-Courts •  
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   Thursday - February 23, 2006

Battleground

Forget the warring parties in the Middle East. There is about to be another meaner, nastier war right here in America. The opening salvo has been fired from South Dakota. Since South Dakota is in the middle of nowhere, none of the major Liberal forces showed up. No, they’re biding their time until the war moves to Washington, DC and the Supreme Court. Make no mistake. It is coming. You’d better strap on your combat helmets and hunker down in your foxholes. There will be incoming shortly ....

S.D. Closer to Strict Abortion Limits
February 23, 2006, 8:38 AM EST

PIERRE, S.D. (AP)

South Dakota moved closer to imposing some of the strictest limits on abortion in the nation as the state Senate approved legislation that would ban the procedure except when the woman’s life is in danger.

The bill, designed to spark a courtroom showdown over the legality of abortion, passed 23-12 Wednesday. On Thursday, it was headed back to the House, where lawmakers already approved similar legislation.

Republican Gov. Mike Rounds, a longtime abortion opponent, has said he would “look favorably” on an abortion ban if it would “save life.” Under the measure, doctors in South Dakota would face up to five years in prison for performing an abortion. The only exception would be for women who need abortions to save their lives.

“In my opinion, it is the time for the South Dakota Legislature to deal with this issue and protect the lives and rights of unborn children,” said Sen. Julie Bartling, a Democrat and the bill’s main sponsor. The legislation targets Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Opponents say it is too extreme and unconstitutional. Planned Parenthood, which operates the only clinic that provides abortions in South Dakota, pledged to challenge the measure if it become law.

“South Dakota’s ban is the most sweeping abortion ban passed by any state in more than a decade,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America lawyer Eve Gartner said in a written statement. She said the organization would do everything it could to ensure that women and their doctors, not politicians, made their health care decisions.

Supporters say an anonymous donor has pledged to provide South Dakota with $1 million to help defend the law in court. The recent appointment of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito make the U.S. Supreme Court more likely to consider overturning Roe v. Wade now, Bartling and other supporters said. “It is a calculated risk to be sure, but I believe it is a fight worth fighting,” said Sen. Brock Greenfield, a Republican who also is director of South Dakota Right to Life.

Some senators, including Republicans, were concerned that the legislation did not include exceptions for abortions in cases of rape or incest. Republican Sen. Stan Adelstein said it would be “a continued savagery unworthy of South Dakota” to make a woman bear a child if she becomes pregnant as the result of rape.

The Legislature passed a similar bill two years ago, but Rounds issued a technical veto because it would have wiped existing restrictions off the books while the bill was involved in a court challenge. Including Thursday, the Legislature has five days left before the official end of its session.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/23/2006 at 09:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Abortion •  
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   Monday - January 23, 2006

The Gathering Storm

It looks like stormy weather is moving into South Dakota and the first major skirmish in the war against abortion will begin here. Look for this one to get real nasty. It should hit SCOTUS in about a year and forty-nine other states will be watching. Everybody get out your protective gear. This promises to be a really bad storm ...

South Dalota Legislature To Consider Abortion Ban
(KELO-TV)

In the next six weeks, South Dakota lawmakers will decide whether to make abortion a crime. A bill that would ban abortion in the state will be introduced within the next two days. The bill will be called the Woman’s Health and Life Protection Act. It will ban abortion, but won’t prosecute a doctor who performs one to save a woman’s life. And the lawmaker who’s introducing the bill says he thinks now is the right time to try and over-turn Roe vs Wade.

Rep. Roger Hunt says, “Abortion should be banned.” Those four words will likely lead to many others in the South Dakota House and Senate as lawmakers will decide whether to criminalize abortion in the state. The bill’s supporters are using findings from a controversial abortion task force report recently given to the legislature. Hunt says, “DNA testing now can establish the unborn child has a separate and distinct personality from the mother. We know a lot more about post-abortion harm to the mother.”

The legislature debated a similar bill two years ago, but Governor Mike Rounds vetoed it because of concerns over some technicalities. Hunt says, “We have made those corrections to the bill.” Sunday, Hunt and other anti-abortion advocates held an event promoting their legislation. They say now is the time to pass it, because other states are considering similar bills and because with new Chief Justice John Roberts, and possibly Samuel Alito, the US Supreme Court is changing.

Hunt says, “Two very solid, we feel, pro-life candidates. Again you never know but based on their testimony to the senate we feel they’re good candidates.” Hunt says he thinks enough other lawmakers support the bill for it to pass, but he still thinks the decision will be a close one. He says, “I learned a long time ago the only time you really count the votes is when you’re taking the votes.”

Hunt will also introduce two other bills this week. One is meant to ensure doctors explain the risks of an abortion to a woman is writing. The other deals with sex education and says school districts need to include principles in their curriculums dealing with abstinence and personal responsibilities.

Demonstrators Mark Roe V. Wade Anniversary
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)

Thousands of abortion opponents massed outside Minnesota’s Capitol on Sunday in one of several protests nationwide on the 33rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, amid heightened hopes and fears over what a new face on the Supreme Court will mean for the decision establishing abortion rights.

A crowd of sign-wavers clad in parkas, winter boots and collars turned up against a cutting wind to call for a ban on public funding of abortion. “We must stop abortion in our state,” said Scott Fischbach, head of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. “Things are changing in this country.” Many abortion opponents said they were heartened by President Bush’s choice of Samuel Alito to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a moderate who was often the court’s swing vote.

Alito, who appears to have solid support from the Senate’s Republican majority, refused during his confirmation hearings to agree with assertions by Democrats that Roe v. Wade was “settled law,” upsetting supporters of abortion rights and heartening opponents. “We have a dream today that someday soon this will not be an anniversary of sadness, but an anniversary of justice restored,” said Minnesota’s Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

In San Francisco, thousands of abortion opponents shouldering signs with slogans such as “Peace Begins in the Womb” marched Saturday, while abortion rights supporters along the march route waved clothes hangers and shouted “Bigots go home.” “Abortion rights have been slowly whittled away while we haven’t even been looking,” said Kitty Striker, 22, who decorated her hair with small coat hanger replicas for the counter-protest. “That’s what’s so shocking and so scary to me.”

In Idaho, nearly 400 abortion protesters marched at the Statehouse Saturday, including Reid Richardson and his 5-year-old stepdaughter, Allie Zebley, who carried sign with her ultrasound photo and the words, “This is me at 16 weeks.” About half that number gathered Sunday outside the Idaho Capitol in support of abortion rights. “When American women are barred from accessing health services at the whim of a politician’s religious beliefs, we are not in a democracy at all,” said Bree Herndon-Michael, a member of the Idaho Women’s Network.

The largest abortion demonstration was expected Monday in Washington, D.C., where anti-abortion activists planned to converge on the mall to hear speakers supporting their cause and march on the Congress and Supreme Court. Many who support abortion rights held a candlelight vigil in front of the Supreme Court Sunday night, waving signs that read: “Alito-No Justice For Women,” and “Keep Abortion Legal.”

The nation’s high court made abortion legal on Jan. 22, 1973. But efforts to restrict or outlaw the procedure have been just as enduring; 34 states have passed laws requiring parents either to be notified or to give consent when their underage daughters seek abortions. This year, abortion foes in Minnesota will try to encourage the Legislature to ban public funding of abortions for Medicaid recipients, which has been required since a 1995 state Supreme Court decision. They are also campaigning against the re-election of a justice who supported the decision.

In Michigan, a group of ministry leaders used the anniversary to launch a new anti-abortion organization, Michigan Chooses Life. One goal is to support efforts to get a measure on the 2006 ballot that would change the state constitution to legally define a person as existing at the moment of conception. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan has said that even if the measure does succeed, it will be challenged in court.

Posted by The Skipper     on 01/23/2006 at 07:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Abortion •  
• Comments (31) • Trackbacks (1) • Permalink •  

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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