Plan B, a Dose of Reality
The two sides of the abortion debate don’t share much in the way of ideology, but there was a common reaction from both camps yesterday after the decision over Plan B: shock. For years, the Left has been pushing to make the “morning-after” pill available for anyone of any age without a prescription. They assumed the Obama administration, headed by the most militant pro-abortion President in history, would go along with the idea. They assumed wrong. Tuesday, the head of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, announced that she was overruling the FDA in one the most jaw-dropping decisions of this White House’s term. Sebelius, one of the abortion movement’s most reliable allies, agreed with groups like FRC that making Plan B as accessible to buy as aspirin was a dangerous decision, especially for young girls. “ ...[T]he switch from prescription to over-the-counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use.” For now, Plan B will stay behind pharmacy counters--where it belongs.
While Sebelius’s decision was the right one, it certainly knocked the wind out of the abortion movement. This morning, liberals were still seething that, for once, HHS put women’s safety ahead of their radical agenda. Kirsten Moore, part of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, told the Washington Post that her group is “outraged that this administration has let politics trump science.” Funny, they don’t seem to mind when the White House is ignoring science on stem cell research, RU-486, or the contraceptive mandate in ObamaCare. The reality is, we shouldn’t be lining store shelves with pills packed with several times the hormones of a standard birth control dose.
As FRC’s Jeanne Monahan said in dozens of media interviews yesterday, that kind of convenience is not in the best interest of young women’s health. Not only is Plan B linked to an increase in teen pregnancies, but a 2010 study found that it’s partially responsible for a spike in adolescent STDs. Allowing young girls to buy Plan B directly off store shelves also robs parents of more authority. These are pills that can, in some instances, abort a human life. Surely, moms and dads have a right to know that their daughters are considering these risks. Meanwhile, abortion groups are acting as if Plan B has been outlawed altogether. Hardly. All Sebelius asks is that girls under 16 consult their doctors first. Whatever politics may have motivated yesterday’s decision, we applaud HHS for getting this right. When it comes to dru gs like Plan B, which FRC has opposed from the beginning, women and their unborn children deserve as much protection as possible.
Astounding Video Depicts Unborn Baby’s Full Development
An astounding new video is drawing rave reviews from pro-life advocates around the world for its depiction of the fetal development of an unborn baby.
The new video on YouTube features Alexander Tsiaras, the author of From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds, presenting a video he helped develop which shows a visualization of the unborn child’s development from conception to birth. The video already has nearly 80,000 views even though it was only uploaded to YouTube on November 14. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/11/23/astounding-video-depicts-unborn-babys-full-development/
Little Girl With Down Syndrome Takes Modeling World by Storm
The London Telegraph newspaper features a story on little Taya Kennedy, a 14-month-old girl who has Down’s Syndrome but has taken the modeling world by storm. The camera loves her and she now has her own modeling agency that is booking her gig after photogenic gig.
Kennedy is just another example of the joy such children and people with Down syndrome bring to the world but who, tragically, see their lives snuffed out by abortion at a 90 percent rate.
From the story: ‘Taya is an incredibly photogenic, warm and smiley child, and that shines through in her photographs,’ says Alysia Lewis, owner of Urban Angels, the prestigious UK model agency that has signed her up. ‘We only open our books twice a year and select just a few new children each season. ‘The standard is high; the desire for places strong. Taya is one of 50 children we chose from 2,000 applicants.
‘That she has Down’s Syndrome did not enter the equation. We chose her because of her vibrancy and sense of fun. Not all children are comfortable in front of a lens and with a photographer looking at them — especially when they are so young. But Taya was so relaxed and happy. She was just what we were looking for.’ http://www.lifenews.com/2011/11/28/little-girl-with-down-syndrome-takes-modeling-world-by-storm/
Hidden Persuaders
The unheralded gains of the pro-life movement
by Fred Barnes
November 7, 2011, Vol. 17, No. 08
Opponents of abortion are rarely interviewed on television these days. “It’s much harder to get on TV than it used to be,” says Charmaine Yoest, who heads Americans United for Life. Bookers of guests for news shows tell her, “We don’t want to talk about abortion. We’re tired of it.”
Perhaps the mainstream media are simply incapable of covering more than one social issue at a time. For the moment, the conflict over gay marriage and gays in the military is monopolizing media coverage, TV and print alike. Abortion is barely an afterthought.
There’s an upside to this for the pro-life movement, a benefit of benign neglect. Foes of gay rights are now seen by the press as fighting the bad war, roughly analogous to Vietnam. Pro-lifers are waging the good war, like World War II. “You get much less grief fighting against abortion than you do fighting to preserve traditional marriage,” says Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List.
If only the media knew. They have missed the most important breakthrough in the struggle over abortion in years: the resurgence of the pro-life crusade. The press elite was beaten on the story by publications such as Christianity Today (“The New Pro-Life Surge”) and Baptist Press (“5 Reasons the Pro-Life Movement is Winning”).
That the pro-life movement is bigger is a given. It’s also younger, increasingly entrepreneurial, more strategic in its thinking, better organized, tougher in dealing with allies and enemies alike, almost wildly ambitious, and more relentless than ever.
All that is dwarfed by an even bigger change. Pro-lifers have captured the high moral ground, chiefly thanks to advances in the quality of sonograms. Once fuzzy, sonograms now provide a high-resolution picture of the unborn child in the womb. Fetuses have become babies.
Abortion advocates were among the first to understand how this would alter the debate. Two pro-choice leaders, Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling, acknowledged three years ago that “antiabortionists” had gained a significant advantage. Supporters of abortion, they wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “have had a hard time dealing with the increased visibility of the fetus.” To “regain the moral high ground,” they must deal with “a world that is radically changed from 1973,” when the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide.
Pro-life groups, unlike advocates of easy access to abortion, have proved adept in accommodating to this new world. They’ve begun piling up successes. In 2011 alone, 24 states have enacted 52 new restrictions on abortion. Five now require an ultrasound before an abortion, two insisting that the screen be viewable by the mother. Four bar abortions after the baby is able to feel pain (at approximately 20 weeks). Eight have opted out of Obamacare. Five ban abortions by webcam (in which a doctor, not in person but videoconferencing with the mother, prescribes pills to induce abortion). Six trimmed or eliminated funds for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. Texas led with a $64 million cut.
The wave of state action shouldn’t be all that surprising. Republicans gained control of 26 legislatures in the 2010 election. Once advised to drop the abortion issue or suffer a certain decline, the GOP is now the nation’s pro-life party—and isn’t declining. In Congress, the House has passed two pro-life bills this year, one outlawing abortion subsidies in Obamacare, the other imposing a blanket ban on taxpayer-funded abortions. Both measures were deep-sixed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Three pro-life trends have spiked in 2011. The first is the rise in opposition to abortion among young people. The under-30 cohort was the most pro-choice in the 1970s, second most in the 1980s and 1990s. Now they’re “markedly less pro-choice” than any other age group, scholars Clyde Wilcox and Patrick Carr have written. “Clearly, something is distinctive about the abortion attitudes of the Millennial Generation of Americans.”
Indeed there is. Millennials haven’t grown more religious, politically conservative, or queasy about gay rights. Nor do they go out of their way to vote for pro-life candidates. But they tend to see abortion as a human rights violation. Thus their resistance to abortion is gradually increasing.
Continue reading at The Weekly Standard.
Planned Parenthood Loses Stranglehold, Funding in 95 of 95 Tennessee Counties
Shelby County Commission Becomes Last to Direct Family Planning Funds Away From Abortion Provider-Promoter
After forty years of preferential treatment by many political and public health leaders in Tennessee and an ironclad monopoly on the tens of millions of tax dollars earmarked for “family planning” programs in Memphis and Nashville, the abortion giant has finally been dealt a serious financial blow. On Monday, members of the Shelby County Commission voted 9-4 to award the “family planning” contract to another non-profit organization, Christ Community Health Services.
The action follows similar efforts earlier this year when, under urging from the Haslam Administration, Nashville’s public health department agreed to accept all available “family planning” funds, a move resulting in the funds being diverted from Planned Parenthood’s Nashville abortion affiliate. Taken together, more than $1,000,000 in tax payer funds has been re-directed in Tennessee since May.
The outcome is a victory for pro-life Tennesseans and realization of another longtime priority for Tennessee Right to Life.
“Without question, lives will be improved, changed and saved as a result of directing these tax dollars away from Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities in Memphis and Nashville,” said Brian Harris, president of Tennessee Right to Life. “At risk women and families will now have the opportunity to receive quality care from ethical providers whose underlying goal is not to sell an abortion,” said Harris.
Tennesseans have proven one more time what can be positively accomplished for the protection of human life by working together. “Pro-life voters have spoken in a consistent manner over the course of years and their elected officials---councilmen, commissioners, legislators, mayors, congressmen, and our Governor---they have all joined the long effort to protect life and Tennessee’s taxpayers,” said Harris.
Tennessee Right to Life expresses sincere appreciation to Governor Bill Haslam, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, Congressman Diane Black, Speaker Beth Harwell, state Senators Stacey Campfield and Jack Johnson, state representatives Mark Pody and Bill Dunn, and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell for their key leadership in ensuring that family planning dollars are directed to respected health providers in communities across Tennessee. Additionally, the organization thanks members of the Shelby County Commission who voted to direct tax dollars away from Planned Parenthood: Brent Taylor, James Harvey, Terry Roland, Mike Ritz, Chris Thomas, Justin Ford, Steve Mulroy, Heidi Shafer and Wyatt Bunker.
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