Liberalism in Action: Planned Parenthood Sells Dead Baby Body Parts

[CosmicCowboy]

Dictionary synonyms for litter are "brood" and "family". C'mon, it's Friday. lighten up.

[boutons_deux]

Planned Parenthood Is Way More Popular Than All The Republican Candidates For President


http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/07120535/favorability-638x435.jpg

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/08/07/3689330/planned-parenthood-popular/

[Blake]

You live under a rock? Almost 40% of births in Bexar County are to unwed mothers and many of them are multiples. I see teenagers with litters at the Valero around the corner from my office downtown every time I go in there.

I don't see teenagers with litters at the Valero every time I go. In fact, I'm not sure I ever have and I stop by the one near Churchill during the day every now and then.

The question is exactly how many of that +/- 40% have more than one kid?

[ChumpDumper]

I usually go to 7-11. Should I expect different birth rates there?

[Blake]

I usually go to 7-11. Should I expect different birth rates there?

with the way these kids with kids use their welfare money on slurpees, you'd think the epidemic would be just as bad there too, amirite CC?

[boutons_deux]

Welfare Queens Driving Cadillacs!

[CosmicCowboy]

I don't see teenagers with litters at the Valero every time I go. In fact, I'm not sure I ever have and I stop by the one near Churchill during the day every now and then.

The question is exactly how many of that +/- 40% have more than one kid?

Churchill LOL

[Blake]

Churchill LOL

why the lol?

[Blake]

Welfare Queens Driving Cadillacs!

With unlimited Slurpees

[CosmicCowboy]

why the lol?

Because you specified a Valero in an upper middle class neighborhood. Duh.

[Blake]

Because you specified a Valero in an upper middle class neighborhood. Duh.

So you're drawing assumptions strictly based on the ghetto type area of town where you work.

[Blake]

Fwiw, there's a lot of low income/section 8 apartments that surround Churchill up and down Blanco, Patricia Dr and Parliament, iirc.

[CosmicCowboy]

So you're drawing assumptions strictly based on the ghetto type area of town where you work.

where the fuck do you think most unwed teenage mothers with multiple children live? The fucking Dominion?

[boutons_deux]

http://www.guttmacher.org/graphics/UP-piechart-1-rev2.png

http://www.guttmacher.org/graphics/UnintendedPregnancyInTheUS(Graph).png

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-Unintended-Pregnancy-US.html

[Blake]

where the fuck do you think most unwed teenage mothers with multiple children live? The fucking Dominion?

you think none go to school at Churchill?

[CosmicCowboy]

you think none go to school at Churchill?

Definitely fewer demographically than at Edgewood, SAISD, South San, etc.

Is what it is.

I thin k it's sad as hell but the facts are the facts. It is a vicious cycle. Those kids born into that environment have little hope of breaking out of the cycle.

[vy65]

you think none go to school at Churchill?

I went to Churchill. I think we had one or two in a class of over 900.

[boutons_deux]

Definitely fewer demographically than at Edgewood, SAISD, South San, etc.

Is what it is.

I thin k it's sad as hell but the facts are the facts. It is a vicious cycle. Those kids born into that environment have little hope of breaking out of the cycle.

Repugs say poor people choose to be poor, God doesn't love them, and there is no structural problem, so Repugs always wanting to cut the safety net to punish the poor of behalf of God.

Wealthy people poll saying they don't want any of their tax money (that which is not avoided or evaded) paying for the safety net.

[Blake]

I went to Churchill. I think we had one or two in a class of over 900.

I should have said "live in the Churchill area".

But if they were smart and used the CC method of lucrative income, they got pregnant at least twice during their teen years.

[CosmicCowboy]

I should have said "live in the Churchill area".

But if they were smart and used the CC method of lucrative income, they got pregnant at least twice during their teen years.

I'm not saying it's a great lifestyle dumbass. It sucks to be poor and stupid and think that squirting out kids for an extra $250 a month is the appropriate thing to do. Their kids have almost a vero chance of becoming productive citizens and will get trapped in that perpetual cycle of poverty.

[Blake]

I'm not saying it's a great lifestyle dumbass. It sucks to be poor and stupid and think that squirting out kids for an extra $250 a month is the appropriate thing to do. Their kids have almost a vero chance of becoming productive citizens and will get trapped in that perpetual cycle of poverty.

You act like they're making money. You do know that food stamps don't pay for diapers and clothes, right?

But hey, they've got enough to splurge at Valero!

[CosmicCowboy]

You act like they're making money. You do know that food stamps don't pay for diapers and clothes, right?

But hey, they've got enough to splurge at Valero!

It's damn sure a choice to have that second, third, and fourth one. By that time they probably know what diapers cost.

You have lived a very sheltered life haven't you? Does your momma still dress you?

[Blake]

It's damn sure a choice to have that second, third, and fourth one. By that time they probably know what diapers cost.

You have lived a very sheltered life haven't

says dude basing his views on teenage pregnancy by staring at the kids at the Valero near his office

[CosmicCowboy]

says dude basing his views on teenage pregnancy by staring at the kids at the Valero near his office

Is what it is.

[Blake]

Lol Yup it is.

[boutons_deux]

The Big Secret of Abortion: Women Already Know How It Works

"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was among the Republicans who voted to make its donation legal in 1993"

http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/08/the-big-secret-of-abortion.html


Republicans Repeatedly Voted To Use Aborted Fetuses For Scientific Research

In fact, just a few years ago, the practice of donating fetal tissue for research purposes enjoyed broad bipartisan support — including from some of the Republicans (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mitch-mcconnell-fetal-tissue-donations-abortion_55b28329e4b0074ba5a479d1) who are currently calling to crack down on Planned Parenthood.

In 1988, during the Reagan administration, a panel of experts from the National Institutes of Health overwhelmingly voted (http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/17/us/us-panel-backs-research-use-of-fetal-tissue-from-abortions.html) in favor of allowing scientists to study biological material obtained from legal abortions. By a 19 to 0 vote, the group concluded (http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/17/us/us-panel-backs-research-use-of-fetal-tissue-from-abortions.html) that the practice should be considered morally acceptable because aborted fetal tissue is analogous to cadaver tissue, which is often used in scientific research.

And in 1993, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle voted to legalize fetal tissue research (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/chrome-extension://klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg/suspended.html#uri=http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=102&session=2&vote=00115#position), even in cases when the samples were obtained from legal abortion procedures, when they approved the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act.

Spurred by pressure (https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/04/1/gr040103.html) from groups looking for cures for degenerative diseases, that legislation (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/s1) lifted a previous ban on using fetal tissue in scientific research put in place during the Reagan administration. McConnell voted in favor — along with several other staunchly pro-life Republican lawmakers, like John McCain, Orrin Hatch, Fred Upton, and Lamar Smith.

In addition to the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act, the Senate had several other opportunities to vote on the issue of fetal tissue donation during the 1990s. Each time, a bipartisan majority indicated support for the practice. In 1992, for instance, most Republicans — including McConnell — voted against a proposal (http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/20/us/bush-to-set-up-research-banks-for-fetal-tissue.html) to limit fetal tissue research to samples procured from miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies. In 1997, the Senate voted down an amendment (https://www.congress.gov/amendment/105th-congress/senate-amendment/1074/text) to the Udall Parkinson’s Research Act that would have prohibited funding for research on aborted fetal tissue.

Although some Democratic lawmakers have started to point out (http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/249790-pelosi-mcconnell-helped-legalize-funding-for-fetal-tissue-research) the apparent hypocrisy at play here, most of the politicians speaking out against Planned Parenthood have not addressed the 1993 vote on the NIH reauthorization bill.

Instead, the spokesperson said, the senator is concerned that Planned Parenthood may be violating laws that prohibit the trafficking of human body parts.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/08/03/3687151/gop-fetal-tissue-donation/


trafficking? :lol Repugs playing semantics to slime PP.

[ddjeffries]

Sixth video is out. CMP alleging that PP/Stem Express don't always have mother's consent. Which would make this a felony.

ABzFZM73o8M

[boutons_deux]

Obama Administration Warns States Defunding Planned Parenthood Likely Is Illegal


A federal agency warned Louisiana and Alabama (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/defund-planned-parenthood_55cbc8ade4b0cacb8d32ef1f) on Wednesday that their latest efforts to defund Planned Parenthood by cutting the reproductive health-care provider from their respective Medicaid programs likely violates federal law.

The warning came in a letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that runs the Medicaid program. The agency warned officials in both Louisiana and Alabama that plans to terminate Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood likely violates a 2011 agency guidance that says that states cannot discriminate against Medicaid health-care providers simply because they provide abortion services with non-federal dollars.

The Medicaid statute defines (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/431.51) which providers qualify for funding, and states that the only way funding can be limited is to establish that a particular provider is not “qualified” under the statute.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/08/13/obama-administration-warns-states-defunding-planned-parenthood-likely-illegal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-administration-warns-states-defunding-planned-parenthood-likely-illegal

[boutons_deux]

Ben Carson Revives Conspiracy Theory That Planned Parenthood Is Trying To Control Black Population


Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Wednesday that Planned Parenthood concentrates its clinics in black neighborhoods as a “way to control that population.”

“I know who Margaret Sanger is and I know that she believed in eugenics and that she was not particularly enamored with black people,” Carson said on Fox News (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDThDZMcOMM&feature=youtu.be) about the Planned Parenthood founder.

Carson went on to claim that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is a supporter of Sanger and urged people to “look up and see what many people in Nazi Germany thought about [Sanger].”

The former neurosurgeon and other opponents of the women’s reproductive health organization have made similar arguments in the past, claiming that Planned Parenthood needs to be defunded in order to save black babies from being aborted.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/08/13/3691456/ben-carson-planned-parenthood/

:lol Sanger is misquoted, as always by rightwingnuts.

[boutons_deux]

Louisiana man charged with hate crime in abortion clinic vandalism case

http://2d0yaz2jiom3c6vy7e7e5svk.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/William-Kennedy-800x430.png

A Louisiana man was charged with a hate crime after he was accused of vandalizing an abortion clinic earlier this month near his home.William Kennedy, of Metairie, is accused of stealing metal lettering early Aug. 1 off the Causeway Medical Clinic and loading it into his pickup, reported The Times-Picayune (http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/08/man_accused_of_vandalizing_met.html).

The 27-year-old Kennedy was arrested Aug. 6 after police reviewed surveillance video recorded outside the health clinic.
Kennedy was released the following day on $10,000 bond.

Louisiana’s hate crime law enhances penalties when victims are targeted for their actual or perceived association with certain groups — including race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or, as in this case, an organization that provides abortion services.

Lawmakers phrased the statute broadly to cover organizations such as abortion clinics, laboratories that conduct animal testing or other non-religious, non-racial organizations, a legal expert told the newspaper.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/louisiana-man-charged-with-hate-crime-in-abortion-clinic-vandalism-case/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

50 years in Angola

[boutons_deux]

Mike Huckabee: God will bless America after Planned Parenthood is completely destroyed

Speaking to a crowd at the Iowa State Fair, the former Arkansas governor said that the “steering mechanism” for the country needed to be based on “the laws of nature’s god.”

“Let us never apologize for who we are as a country,” he remarked. “A country that cannot be explained apart from the providence of God himself. There is no other explanation for the United States of America other than his providence and intervention.”

“And if we are going to invoke his blessing as we often do,” the candidate continued. “Here’s something we always say at the end of our speeches, ‘God bless you and God bless America.’ Every Democrat says it, every Republican says it.”

But Huckabee warned that Americans could not expect to “invoke God’s blessing on this country if we continue the slaughter of unborn children in their mother’s wombs, 60 million of whom have passed away since 1973.”

“Let’s stop the slaughter,” he insisted. “And when I hear people say, ‘We’ll defund Planned Parenthood,’ wonderful, that’s terrific, we should do it.”

“But let’s do more than that. Let’s not just end funding for this nightmare, let’s end the nightmare and make it so when we ask God to bless us he can look down from heaven and say, ‘I will.'”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/mike-huckabee-god-will-bless-america-after-planned-parenthood-is-completely-destroyed/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

Iowa, the animal shit state

[ddjeffries]

I'm wondering if CMP can prove that Stem Express doesn't always have consent. One testimony wouldn't be enough obviously.

Also what happen to the restraining order on these videos? Is it over already?

[ddjeffries]

7th video posted today. Alleging PP removed brain from baby who was able be revived and had a beating heart.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251849&p=8168766&viewfull=1#post8168766

[ddjeffries]

Can't call them guilty. But their should be a federal investigation, and even you would have to agree with that.

[boutons_deux]

Can't call them guilty. But their should be a federal investigation, and even you would have to agree with that.

investigations by the states FOUND NOTHING illegal with PP, but it sure looks like STEM EXPRESS was buying/selling baby bits FOR PROFIT.

[ddjeffries]

investigations by the states FOUND NOTHING illegal with PP, but it sure looks like STEM EXPRESS was buying/selling baby bits FOR PROFIT.

keyword: states. States don't have access to all the data and documentation the national office would have.

also who is StemExpress buying these baby bits from?

[boutons_deux]

so far, those investigations are falling flat.

Completed probes in Georgia (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/08/13/georgia-south-dakota-investigations-conclude-wrongdoing-planned-parenthood/), Indiana (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/14e6280c406a4d21920c5594107dfdc4/indiana-clears-planned-parenthood-wrongdoing-after-videos), Massachusetts (https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/29/healey-mass-planned-parenthood-fully-compliant-with-law/Fc6pYYrY1ONGQvRTEqkWHK/story.html), and South Dakota have spent thousands in taxpayer money, but turned up no evidence that Planned Parenthood is trafficking in the sale of fetal tissue.

And in most of the other states that have launched investigations—including Ohio (http://fox8.com/2015/07/16/ohio-attorney-general-orders-probe-of-planned-parenthood/), Arizona (http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2015/07/20/ducey-orders-investigation-into-planned-parenthood-arizona), Texas (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/30/farce-strong-enough-word-describe-outrageous-planned-parenthood-hearing-texas-legislature/), and Kansas (http://www.startribune.com/apnewsbreak-no-kansas-reports-on-fetal-tissue-in-15-years/320951361/)—Planned Parenthood affiliates don't even have fetal tissue donation programs, making it hard to believe the states will find any illegal activity related to the practice.

In Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered (http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/07/bobby_jindal_planned_parenthoo.html) an investigation in mid-July, Planned Parenthood does not even operate a single clinic. :lol :lol

"In every state where these investigations have concluded, officials have cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing," Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation, told (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/state-investigations-planned-parenthood_55ce0c00e4b0ab468d9d1490?q21n61or) the Huffington Post.

"We've said all along that Planned Parenthood follows all laws and has very high medical standards, and that's what every one of these investigations has found."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/08/state-investigations-planned-parenthood-fetal-tissue-south-carolina

ACORN, death panels, Benghazi!!!, Obamacare, Ebola, ISIS will destroy America, and now PP.

ALL RIGHT WING BULLSHIT FUD from their parallel fantasy universe of LIES

[CosmicCowboy]

so far, those investigations are falling flat.

Completed probes in Georgia (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/08/13/georgia-south-dakota-investigations-conclude-wrongdoing-planned-parenthood/), Indiana (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/14e6280c406a4d21920c5594107dfdc4/indiana-clears-planned-parenthood-wrongdoing-after-videos), Massachusetts (https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/29/healey-mass-planned-parenthood-fully-compliant-with-law/Fc6pYYrY1ONGQvRTEqkWHK/story.html), and South Dakota have spent thousands in taxpayer money, but turned up no evidence that Planned Parenthood is trafficking in the sale of fetal tissue.

And in most of the other states that have launched investigations—including Ohio (http://fox8.com/2015/07/16/ohio-attorney-general-orders-probe-of-planned-parenthood/), Arizona (http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2015/07/20/ducey-orders-investigation-into-planned-parenthood-arizona), Texas (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/30/farce-strong-enough-word-describe-outrageous-planned-parenthood-hearing-texas-legislature/), and Kansas (http://www.startribune.com/apnewsbreak-no-kansas-reports-on-fetal-tissue-in-15-years/320951361/)—Planned Parenthood affiliates don't even have fetal tissue donation programs, making it hard to believe the states will find any illegal activity related to the practice.

In Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered (http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/07/bobby_jindal_planned_parenthoo.html) an investigation in mid-July, Planned Parenthood does not even operate a single clinic. :lol :lol

"In every state where these investigations have concluded, officials have cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing," Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation, told (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/state-investigations-planned-parenthood_55ce0c00e4b0ab468d9d1490?q21n61or) the Huffington Post.

"We've said all along that Planned Parenthood follows all laws and has very high medical standards, and that's what every one of these investigations has found."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/08/state-investigations-planned-parenthood-fetal-tissue-south-carolina

ACORN, death panels, Benghazi!!!, Obamacare, Ebola, ISIS will destroy America, and now PP.

ALL RIGHT WING BULLSHIT FUD from their parallel fantasy universe of LIES




Googles your friend fuckwad. Way too many black babies for Planned Parenthood not to be working there. :p:

http://plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-gulf-coast/who-we-are/ppgc-louisiana/

[Winehole23]

Way too many black babies for Planned Parenthood not to be working there. :p:CC supports the mission of Planned Parenthood so long as black babies are getting aborted.

Of course he'll say I can't take a joke. My take on that is that a joke that isn't funny isn't really a joke. In this case it fits a pattern: CC using a "joke" as a fig leaf for a racist comment.

[CosmicCowboy]

CC supports the mission of Planned Parenthood so long as black babies are getting aborted.

Of course he'll say I can't take a joke. My take on that is that a joke that isn't funny isn't really a joke. In this case it fits a pattern: CC using a "joke" as a fig leaf for a racist comment.

Whatever floats your boat. i am pro-choice period, so yeah I support blacks being able to get abortions too.

[Spurminator]

https://www.scarymommy.com/why-a-20-week-abortion-ban-is-scary-for-all-women/

Why A 20-Week Abortion Ban Is Scary For All Women
by Jenifer Briscoe-Brimmage

Every morning, when I wake up, I check Facebook to see what the world has been up to while I slept. At my stage of life, I’m always met with a fresh onslaught of pregnancy announcements and baby photos. Glowing women in all their glory, snuggly babies in baskets. I love these posts. But in recent weeks, I’m seeing a lot about Planned Parenthood.

I was hesitant to watch these videos at first. Afraid, given my circumstances, that I would be horrified, but I wasn’t. I’m nervous about what comes next for the organization. They have fought back from all kinds of attacks, but this one has even the pro-choice side worked up. All of this perfectly timed, of course, to an election cycle, and to a time when new abortion restrictions are popping up right and left, at state and federal levels. And now I truly know what women stand to lose.

To put this in context, I am an OB/GYN. I trained at a hospital where, because we received state funding in an extremely conservative state, we did not do abortions. I rarely met the women who needed them. But I have always considered myself pro-choice (as I think all women’s health professionals should be), and never had any problems with the pro-choice basics. I don’t think we can ever judge a woman’s reproductive decisions until we’re in her shoes.



My own pregnancy had been going without incident. We decided to start trying for a second child just before my son turned two, and I got pregnant the first month we were trying – a surprise, because I needed treatment for infertility with my first. I was pretty sick through about 16 weeks, but it was better than with my first. And I had gotten through the rough part; I was feeling better. Nurses and patients were getting brave and asking if I was pregnant. But I wasn’t hiding it. It was my second, and I was clearly showing.At less than 12 weeks, we had the results of our early genetic screening. Negative testing for Down’s syndrome. Negative testing for some things called trisomy 13 and 18 – which come about the same way as Down’s syndrome but are fatal. Negative testing for something called Di George Syndrome, which, among other things, causes fetal heart defects, developmental delays, and facial abnormalities.

And we were having a girl.

Because I see all of the bad things that can happen, I think I am justifiably paranoid about pregnancy. But my genetic testing was normal. I had taken a few peeks with ultrasound and everything looked OK. I was at the Gap shopping for my son and saw a tiny little dress I couldn’t pass up. I bought some adorable blankets from Target. I started shopping online for the nursery. We started talking to my son about his little sister.

At the standard 19 weeks and a few days, we had our anatomy ultrasound with the high risk OB specialists. My husband knew the sonographer (he’s also an OB/GYN, did I mention that?). The whole time, we were joking about our baby girl’s modesty. She wouldn’t open her legs and give us a good look, but no matter; we already knew the sex anyway.

And then we got to the heart. The sonographer just couldn’t get the pictures he wanted. He was shaking my belly with the probe to get her to move. He had me turning side to side. He had me go empty my bladder.
The atmosphere in the room changed. It changed from, “I can’t see…” to, “I should be seeing…”. He was using words like overriding and stenosis – words that I know, but wasn’t really hearing. At some point, he reached out, touched my hand, and said, “It’s nothing you did,” and it wasn’t until that moment that I knew something was really wrong. I think he assumed that because I’m an OB, I knew exactly what I should be seeing. But I don’t do these complex heart views, and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have caught it on my own.

The high-risk doctor came in. We know him personally as well. He and the sonographer kept scanning and talking about what they saw. We were still too early, the heart was too small, they couldn’t say exactly what the problem was. We left knowing that there was “something going on with the heart,” but little more.



We were offered an amniocentesis while we were there, but I was scared. I didn’t think the results would be helpful. I had already had a negative screening test. The 20 week, 6 day deadline for termination of pregnancy in our state was mentioned, but I didn’t give it a lot of thought. The amnio results might not even be back at that point. There was a heart defect, and that was scary, but we would deal with it.After agonizing over it for a day or so, we decided to do the amnio, mostly because we thought we would be reassured by normal results. The same doctor who did our original ultrasound did our amnio. It was uncomfortable, but not terrible. He and the sonographer looked at the heart again, talked more, and felt more confident that our baby had something called Tetralogy of Fallot. This is something that all medical students learn about. It has to be surgically repaired in infancy, but it is often manageable. I have a friend who had a baby girl with it, and she did great. Shaun White, the snowboarder, has it. Our lives would be different from what we had imagined, but we felt reassured. We thought we could handle it.

Afterwards, we had a fetal echo, an even more detailed look at the heart, and met with a pediatric cardiologist. The echo tech was in good spirits; we chatted the whole time, laughed about kids and family. Then he put us in a room to wait for the cardiologist.

The cardiologist asked us what we already knew, and we told him we thought it was Tetralogy. We were ready to talk about surgery and recovery. We already knew that despite an initial surgery, long term prognosis is very good.

He pulled out some pictures, and told us it was something else. Tetralogy of Fallot with absent pulmonary valve. Those four words changed everything. Neither of us had ever heard of it before.

Our little girl’s pulmonary arteries – the vessels that take blood from her heart to her lungs – were enlarged. They were likely already putting pressure on her airways and keeping them from developing normally. They would continue to grow throughout pregnancy – there was nothing to do to prevent it. She might develop heart failure before she was born. If not, her heart would have to be surgically repaired, probably in the first week of life, but that wasn’t the main issue. Because of her poorly formed airways, there was a good chance she wouldn’t be able to breathe when she was born, that she wouldn’t even be able to be mechanically ventilated. That she would die in the first few minutes, the first few days. I pushed the cardiologist for numbers. I wanted to know the chance that she would even survive to have surgery – he told me it was 50/50.

If she made it to surgery, which itself has about a ten percent mortality, she might need a tracheostomy. She might be ventilator dependent, even for years. She would probably need a feeding tube surgically implanted in her stomach. She would definitely need at least two more open heart surgeries during childhood and adolescence. He used the phrase “if you choose to continue the pregnancy” more than once. He again mentioned the 20 week 6 day deadline. We were 19 weeks 5 days.
He told us to take our time in the room and quietly stepped out. We fled. I saw my husband cry for only the second time in our marriage. It was late Friday afternoon.

We spent the weekend in shock. We read everything we could find about the diagnosis, and there wasn’t much. It accounts for 3% of patients with Tetralogy of Fallot. The prognosis is poor.We talked over the weekend about termination. We went back and forth. We knew the prognosis was bad, but no one could tell us how bad. A lot of these babies die, but some of them live. A lot of them are ventilator dependent, need feeding tubes, have developmental delays, but not all of them. If this had been something we knew she couldn’t survive, I think the decision would have been easier. I found myself listing all of the bad birth defects I know of, bargaining for a better one, or a worse. I cried for two days straight.


We were able to get scheduled for a second opinion with a different pediatric cardiologist on Monday, when we were 20 weeks 1 day. If we were considering termination, I had to be absolutely sure of the diagnosis.

We talked to the second cardiologist and the chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at a different major academic hospital. They confirmed the diagnosis. The doctors were so patient. We talked about tracheostomy, ventilators, and ECMO. Surgery and recovery, pain medications and sedation. Feeding tubes. Developmental delays. Home nursing care. None of this was guaranteed, but all of it was a very strong possibility.

What was certain is that if our little girl lived past her first few breaths, the medical care she would need sounded like torture. I wouldn’t be able to hold her and comfort her. I found a support group for the condition online; people only post the success stories to those kind of groups. But even the success stories involved kids with tracheostomies and months or years on a ventilator, feeding through a tube, children who didn’t leave the hospital for the first time until they were a year old – or 2, or 3. Sometimes never.

I couldn’t imagine subjecting a baby to that. I couldn’t imagine telling my toddler she had to have another open heart surgery that she might not survive … and then telling her again when she was a teenager, and old enough to understand what that means.

And we have a 2-year-old son who still expects to have parents.

Every time I leaned toward termination, I felt I was being selfish. That I was choosing our lives – mine, my husband’s, my son’s – over hers. Every time I thought about continuing the pregnancy, I felt I was being selfish. That I couldn’t go through with termination because I couldn’t cope with the guilt. That she would suffer because I was afraid of my own emotional pain. I knew that if I terminated the pregnancy, I would never be able to see or hold our daughter – in our state, only a procedure called D&E is offered, I couldn’t be induced. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I had been able to feel her moving through all of this.

I wanted someone to tell me that it was OK to choose to spare our baby from all the pain that was in store for her. I knew my family felt like that was the right decision, but no one would say it out loud. We didn’t feel like we could tell my husband’s family what was happening because they’re very religious, very conservative. I pored through the posts of support groups, but they don’t seem to include women who terminated their pregnancies. I was desperate for someone to tell me the answer, but we had to make the decision ourselves.

We ultimately decided we couldn’t bring a baby into the world to suffer in the way that we knew our daughter would. When we get pregnant, we imagine lives for our children – lives that will inevitably include some amount of pain, of suffering, because that is just how life is. But knowingly bringing my daughter into the world for this life felt inhumane.We had connections. We were able to start the termination process the next day – technically meeting the 24 hour waiting period mandated by law in our state. I got my mandatory counseling, which, among other things, told me that I had access to prenatal care, that the baby’s father was required to provide financial support – so irrelevant, and so insensitive in our case.

We had the cervical dilators placed, and I cried through the whole thing. The doctor cried. It was excruciating and emotionally traumatic. The surgery was scheduled for 48 hours later. The cramping was terrible, and I spent the rest of that day and the next in bed.

And then my water broke. My son was home with us. I’m an obstetrician, but I panicked. I wasn’t ready for it, even though I knew it was something that could happen. The surgery wasn’t supposed to be until the next morning; I was supposed to get to keep my baby for one more night.

But we couldn’t wait. We had to go to the hospital right then. I was afraid the whole drive that I was going to deliver her in the car. Part of me hoped that I would; at least I would get to see my baby.

We had the procedure done that night, and then went home. There were no complications. It was over before I had much time to think about it. The next day, I almost felt relieved. Physically, I wasn’t hurting at all anymore. I wasn’t agonizing over the decision. It was done.

That feeling didn’t last long.

One of the hardest things about this decision is not being able to talk about it. There is a culture of shame that surrounds abortions. There are a few people who know what happened, but even as an OB/GYN who is openly pro-choice, I worry about being judged.

We’re telling people we lost the baby, which is true, but not. There is little support out there for women who have late terminations. As I had already learned, you don’t find it in the support groups for these fetal conditions; instead, you read a lot of statements like “termination was NEVER an option,” and “we always knew our baby would be OK.”

And somehow you feel like you don’t have the same right to grieve as a woman who went into preterm labor, whose baby died. But I was devastated. My milk came in; I bled for two weeks. None of my clothes fit. I had all the normal postpartum mood changes, but without a baby.



I went back to work five days later, which now seems so crazy, but I didn’t know what else to do. I took my first call in the hospital, delivered my first baby eight days after I lost my own.On my first day back in the hospital, I had to tell a large group of labor and delivery nurses that I wasn’t pregnant anymore. One asked if I had had a miscarriage, and I froze. I didn’t know what to say. I told them she had died, because I just couldn’t bear the thought of them judging me.

I’m terrified of getting pregnant again, of constantly wondering if my baby is OK. Of not knowing until halfway through. I was so excited to be having a girl; I’m worried that if the next one is a boy, I won’t be happy. I’m worried that this will happen again. We got the amnio results back a few days after the termination, and they were normal.

This was just bad luck.

We always tell patients that they didn’t do anything wrong, and we mean it, but I wonder … I had a couple of glasses of wine, I took a bath that was probably too hot, I took nausea medication.

About a month after we chose to end our pregnancy, the US House of Representatives passed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks, with exceptions only for victims of rape.

To be clear, two doctors – both OB/GYNs, with connections to help us get squeezed in for last-minute appointments, and better access to care than just about anyone else – were barely able to make a 20 week 6 day deadline at our own hospital. It would have been literally impossible, even for us, to have made a 20 week cut-off in this case. What a 20 week abortion ban is doing, in essence, is taking away the option of ending a pregnancy for fetal anomalies, even those that are lethal, discovered at an anatomy ultrasound.

My worry is that, if public opinion and conservative politics win out, and we push the gestational age limit on abortions earlier, we, as physicians, will have to start doing our ultrasounds earlier. We know as obstetricians that for detailed structures like the heart, even with the best of today’s high-resolution imaging technology, there is a limit to how early you can see anomalies. Women will have to make decisions with less information, with less reliable information. They’ll feel even more rushed. At my first ultrasound, just before 20 weeks – which was performed at a major academic center with a very well-reputed high-risk OB department – we couldn’t be sure of the diagnosis. Even with the very best of care and connections to get appointments without a wait, I was still pregnant well into my 20th week.

I get it. Most people consider a 20 week abortion ban to be reasonable. All they know of late-term abortions are the gruesome – and usually inaccurate – descriptions of the procedure given by pro-life activists. They’re horrified by pro-life propaganda that has been spreading recently.There are already several states that have 20 week restrictions on the books. And banning abortion after 20 weeks has never seemed very restrictive, even to me. I could never imagine a woman choosing to end a life that she could feel moving inside her.

Abortions past 20 weeks account for a little more than 1% of the total abortions performed in the US every year. Most of these women are in crisis situations and almost certainly would have preferred to have been able to terminate their pregnancies earlier.



Maybe they didn’t find out they were pregnant until late in pregnancy (because their periods are irregular or their birth control failed). They can’t get access to healthcare for months because of long waits or lack of providers nearby, or they don’t have the money to pay for an abortion early on. They get halfway through pregnancy and find themselves in a marital or financial crisis. They are diagnosed with cancer that needs treatment, or they develop heart failure because of the excess strain a pregnancy puts on the cardiovascular system. They find out there is something terribly wrong with their growing baby.Women seeking late-term abortions often don’t have options. It isn’t really “elective.” I truly believe that it is a decision no woman could take lightly. Ever. We need to start giving women more credit. Politicians act like these decisions are hasty, irrational, or uninformed. Look a woman in the eye who has been here, and see if you still think that. Placing more burdens on women – arbitrary gestational age limits, 72-hour waiting periods, mandatory counseling and ultrasounds – just adds more pain to what is almost always an excruciating decision.

These videos that have come out, of course, are going to make this decision harder on women. Are going to make women who have already made this choice feel exploited. I sympathize with the doctors in the videos and the women who are going to think twice about donating fetal tissue. If I could have donated my daughter’s heart for research, or any of her tissue, I would have, but I wasn’t offered this. I didn’t have my procedure at a Planned Parenthood.

Abortion rights are something that few people want to talk about, especially the women who have needed abortions and who are most in need of supporters. I’ve shared my story a bit since my procedure, and women come out of the woodworks, happy to share an experience with someone they know will understand. There is a culture of shame that prevents women from coming forward. Who is going to defend us if we feel afraid to speak out ourselves? My initial reluctance to tell the truth has been replaced by a desire to scream it. I feel a responsibility to help women that find themselves in my situation.

Maybe this will eventually make me a better doctor – more sympathetic, more understanding of loss, better able to provide women with the support that they need. I truly do hope that something good might come of it, if for no other reason than to give some meaning to my pain.

It is easy to think that you support a 20 week abortion ban when you’ve never had to make that decision. When you don’t think you know anybody who has. At this point, the only thing I know for certain is this: you can think in the abstract about the difficult decisions people are forced to make, and you can theorize about what you might do, what you believe, what is truly important to you. But until you have actually stood in those shoes and made those impossible choices, you cannot pass judgement on someone who has.

These choices belong with women, their families, and their doctors. Politics and public opinion have no role.


ABOUT THE WRITER

JENIFER BRISCOE-BRIMMAGE (https://www.scarymommy.com/author/jenifer-briscoe/)Jenifer is an OB/GYN in private practice in North Carolina, and a mother of a 2-year-old son. Her husband is also an OB/GYN, and they work hard to balance the demands of a two-physician household while still being reasonable parents.

- See more at: https://www.scarymommy.com/why-a-20-week-abortion-ban-is-scary-for-all-women/#sthash.aqUZw0UK.dpuf

[boutons_deux]

Repugs are misogynists, and they use the Bible to justify their dominion over women as 2nd class beings.

[boutons_deux]

Florida Regulators Back Down From Claims Planned Parenthood Performed Illegal Abortions

Florida regulators have backed down from allegations (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/08/17/lawsuit-florida-regulators-take-unprecedented-step-disrupt-abortion-services/) that three Florida Planned Parenthood clinics were unlawfully performing second-trimester abortions.

Attorneys for Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida filed an emergency injunction Monday and stopped performing some abortions after the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) cited Planned Parenthood facilities in St. Petersburg, Ft. Myers, and Naples for performing abortions on patients greater than 12 weeks’ gestational age but less than 14 weeks, the time period the medical community understands as the first trimester.

Florida regulators had claimed those procedures were actually second-trimester abortions.

But in a letter to Planned Parenthood on Tuesday (http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/251486-florida-backs-off-in-showdown-with-planned-parenthood), the agency conceded that its definition of the first trimester includes 14 weeks from the last menstrual period.

“We’ve said all along that Planned Parenthood follows all laws and has very high medical standards,” Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement following Florida regulator’s decision. “The state of Florida’s own records from nearly a decade ago clearly state that Planned Parenthood is following the law. This underscores what this smear campaign is really about—blocking women’s access to birth control, cancer screenings, STD tests, and safe, legal abortion.”

As a result of that letter, Planned Parenthood dropped its request for an injunction and has resumed performing later first-trimester abortions at the facilities in question.

Florida regulators had investigated all 16 Planned Parenthood clinics in Florida following the release of heavily edited videos (http://rhrealitycheck.org/tag/center-for-medical-progress-video/) by anti-choice activists that describe the process of donating fetal tissue for medical research (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/17/facilitating-donating-fetal-tissue-isnt-breaking-law/).

The agency’s investigation found no evidence any of the clinics were improperly disposing of fetal remains.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/08/20/florida-regulators-back-claims-planned-parenthood-performed-illegal-abortions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29

[ddjeffries]

4:40 in the video makes me sick. Sick sick world we live it.

FzMAycMMXp8

[Spurminator]

Then don't watch it. I don't watch videos of surgeries or live births because they gross me out.

[Winehole23]

Whatever floats your boat. i am pro-choice period, so yeah I support blacks being able to get abortions too.so what was the funny part of, you know, the intended joke?

can you unpack it for us? what were we supposed to laugh at?

[spurraider21]

wow... a whole video to tell us that abortions are gruesome. we already knew all of this. this new video says absolutely nothing about their alleged sale of tissue :lol

its not an anti pp video, its just an anti abortion video

[Winehole23]

judging from the widespread investigations and the associated defunding of PP based on zero proven wrongdoing,I'd say it was specifically aimed at PP.

[CosmicCowboy]

so what was the funny part of, you know, the intended joke?

can you unpack it for us? what were we supposed to laugh at?

Lighten up...it was a Sanger reference joke...Louisiana is a target rich environment.

[hater]

Every morning, when I wake up, I check Facebook to see what the world has been up to while I slept.

:lmao typical stupid bitch. thinking the world revolves around her and her facebook friends :lol

[boutons_deux]

https://action.dccc.org/page/-/back/images/warren_onemorepiece_v2.gif

https://action.dccc.org/page/-/back/images/warren_sickandtired_v2.gif

https://action.dccc.org/page/-/back/images/warren_hityourhead_v2.gif

https://action.dccc.org/page/-/back/images/warren_notgoingback_v2.gif

Warren has more BALLS than all the Repug slimebags and tea baggers combined.

[Spurminator]

634474845187649536

"I intend to jump to conclusions before the truth is known!"

[Winehole23]

Lighten up...it was a Sanger reference joke...Louisiana is a target rich environment.Alluding to Margaret Sanger and race based eugenics in the present context tickles your funny bone?

No reasonable person could conclude you were referring Sanger in mind in the following...


Googles your friend fuckwad. Way too many black babies for Planned Parenthood not to be working there. :p:

http://plannedparenthood.org/planned...pgc-louisiana/ (http://plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-gulf-coast/who-we-are/ppgc-louisiana/)... but it's clear you had eugenics in mind. LA needs PP because there are " way too many black babies."

[Winehole23]

your offhand joke about eugenics reframes your dehumanizing reference upstream to "litters" of Hispanic children.

[CosmicCowboy]

Alluding to Margaret Sanger and race based eugenics in the present context tickles your funny bone?

No reasonable person could conclude you were referring Sanger in mind in the following...

... but it's clear you had eugenics in mind. LA needs PP because there are " way too many black babies."

like I said, lighten up. Of course I had Sanger/PP eugenics in mind. I figured most in here would be sharp enough to make the connection.

[Winehole23]

what was the funny part? what about eugenics in 2015 makes you laugh?

[Winehole23]

Margaret Sanger advocated for eugenics 100 years ago. You're joking about it in the present tense.

[boutons_deux]

PA is 5th state to find no wrongdoing by PP.

[ddjeffries]

Then don't watch it. I don't watch videos of surgeries or live births because they gross me out.

This stuff needs to be seen for its wickedness. Surgeries save lives, abortions kill.

[ddjeffries]

https://action.dccc.org/page/-/back/images/warren_onemorepiece_v2.gif

https://action.dccc.org/page/-/back/images/warren_sickandtired_v2.gif

https://action.dccc.org/page/-/back/images/warren_hityourhead_v2.gif

https://action.dccc.org/page/-/back/images/warren_notgoingback_v2.gif

Warren has more BALLS than all the Repug slimebags and tea baggers combined.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS! (unless they are being aborted)

[Blake]

WOMAN'S RIGHTS! (unless they are being aborted)

What are your thoughts on women that get pregnant when raped? Should they be allowed to get an abortion or do you want to force her to have the baby?

[Shastafarian]

This stuff needs to be seen for its wickedness. Surgeries save lives, abortions kill.

Cosmetic surgeries save lives? How about an abortion for a poor family that used contraceptive but fell in the % of error for that contraceptive? I would argue that an abortion to save a family from crippling debt and bankruptcy also "saves lives". Not like it matters to you.

[Shastafarian]

well, we are multicellular organisms, so that just makes no sense. sure, the zygote is just one cell, but its merely the first cell of that life. plus, i'm willing to bet nobody has ever surgically aborted just a single cell, so thats irrelevant

I was arguing against his point of using DNA to determine life. Every cell contains DNA so using his definition, every cell has a right to life.

[spurraider21]

I was arguing against his point of using DNA to determine life. Every cell contains DNA so using his definition, every cell has a right to life.
even then... no.

each of my cells are part of me, not an individual life form. my skin cell has DNA, but its my DNA. the "every cell has a right to life" thing doesn't apply.

a zygote, though one cell, has DNA unique to itself. its DNA is not that of the mother or the father, but its own. its fallacious to compare a zygote within a mother to any random cell in her body

[Shastafarian]

even then... no.

each of my cells are part of me, not an individual life form. my skin cell has DNA, but its my DNA. the "every cell has a right to life" thing doesn't apply.

a zygote, though one cell, has DNA unique to itself. its DNA is not that of the mother or the father, but its own. its fallacious to compare a zygote within a mother to any random cell in her body


Kinda hard to call something that has human DNA not a human.
That's not what he was arguing. You're right in the uniqueness of the DNA but I don't think we're going to agree on what that means re: abortion.

[spurraider21]

That's not what he was arguing. You're right in the uniqueness of the DNA but I don't think we're going to agree on what that means re: abortion.
im pro-abortion/pro-choice however you want to call it.

despite that, i do consider a zygote to be human. i see it as a living thing (though obviously not viable outside the prenatal environment), and if i had to choose a species it belonged to, human seems to make the most sense imo

i would be hard-pressed to call a single cell a human being. i dont consider each skin cell on my body to be a human being. a human being is the entirety of all the cells. but if that particular being only has 1 cell at that time (zygote), then that one cell IS "the entirety of that being." this is just how i happen to see it.

[Shastafarian]

im pro-abortion/pro-choice however you want to call it.

despite that, i do consider a zygote to be human. i see it as a living thing (though obviously not viable outside the prenatal environment), and if i had to choose a species it belonged to, human seems to make the most sense imo

i would be hard-pressed to call a single cell a human being. i dont consider each skin cell on my body to be a human being. a human being is the entirety of all the cells. but if that particular being only has 1 cell at that time (zygote), then that one cell IS "the entirety of that being." this is just how i happen to see it.

I think our definitions differ only slightly. While I agree that a zygote has human DNA, I wouldn't call it a human being. It's an undifferentiated cell(s) that happens to have unique DNA. Semantics really but using DNA to support anti-choice legislation, IMO, is irresponsible.

[boutons_deux]

"i do consider a zygote to be human"

.... so when do you bomb fertility clinics, murder the stuff for destroying 100s or 1000s of zygotes?

[ddjeffries]

im pro-abortion/pro-choice however you want to call it.

despite that, i do consider a zygote to be human. i see it as a living thing (though obviously not viable outside the prenatal environment), and if i had to choose a species it belonged to, human seems to make the most sense imo

i would be hard-pressed to call a single cell a human being. i dont consider each skin cell on my body to be a human being. a human being is the entirety of all the cells. but if that particular being only has 1 cell at that time (zygote), then that one cell IS "the entirety of that being." this is just how i happen to see it.

That was well thought out. You are correct in calling a skin cell not a human, because it isn't. It is a part of a human. Sperm is not human, eggs are not human. Once they come together to form a developing, living organism; that is when a human , in my opinion is formed. A skin cell isn't a developing human organism.

I understand when people call a fetus not a baby. For me, a zygote is not a fetus, a fetus is not a baby, a baby is not a child, a child is not an adult. But I can not under people calling a fetus not a human.

[ddjeffries]

"i do consider a zygote to be human"

.... so when do you bomb fertility clinics, murder the stuff for destroying 100s or 1000s of zygotes?




He personally bombed fertility clinics? And yes, that would be murder.

[ddjeffries]

Cosmetic surgeries save lives? How about an abortion for a poor family that used contraceptive but fell in the % of error for that contraceptive? I would argue that an abortion to save a family from crippling debt and bankruptcy also "saves lives". Not like it matters to you.

No cosmetic surgeries don't. But I never said they did.

And saving a family from "crippling debt" is no reason for murder. Especially when adoption is an option. And it matters to everyone.

[ddjeffries]

What are your thoughts on women that get pregnant when raped? Should they be allowed to get an abortion or do you want to force her to have the baby?

I already stated my stance on this earlier in the thread. Obviously, that's a horrible situation and only ~3% of abortions are for medical and rape reasons. 97% are for casual/convenience reasons. So out of the roughly 60,000,000 abortions in the US since 1973, only 1,800,000 have been for rape or medical issues. I'd say 2 wrongs don't make a right, but I completely understand why that would be legal even if I don't think the would abortion solve any of the problems for the victim.

[boutons_deux]

"97% are for casual/convenience reasons"

casual/convenience? slander away.

[ddjeffries]

"97% are for casual/convenience reasons"

casual/convenience? slander away.

Ok you pick the word. But I guarantee it won't be good enough to justify taking a human life.

[Blake]

I already stated my stance on this earlier in the thread. Obviously, that's a horrible situation and only ~3% of abortions are for medical and rape reasons. 97% are for casual/convenience reasons. So out of the roughly 60,000,000 abortions in the US since 1973, only 1,800,000 have been for rape or medical issues. I'd say 2 wrongs don't make a right, but I completely understand why that would be legal even if I don't think the would abortion solve any of the problems for the victim.

Funny how many times the "abortion is murder" people change their tune when rape is involved.

At that point, then it's ok to murder an innocent human that broke no law.

[ddjeffries]

Funny how many times the "abortion is murder" people change their tune when rape is involved.

At that point, then it's ok to murder an innocent human that broke no law.

I don't think you read correctly. I said two wrongs don't make a right. It is still murder whether or not the woman was raped.

[spurraider21]

I don't think the would abortion solve any of the problems for the victim.
Except for the whole pregnancy thing

[FuzzyLumpkins]

:lol zygotes are not humans. I know you want them to be conscious and have souls because of your spiritual mumbo jumbo.

I don't know why you are letting puritanical mumbo jumbo nonsense be the central argument.

[Blake]

I don't think you read correctly. I said two wrongs don't make a right. It is still murder whether or not the woman was raped.

It's murder that you're ok with.

[ddjeffries]

It's murder that you're ok with. Nope not ok with it. But I would understand why more people would be ok with it.

[ddjeffries]

:lol zygotes are not humans. I know you want them to be conscious and have souls because of your spiritual mumbo jumbo.

I don't know why you are letting puritanical mumbo jumbo nonsense be the central argument.

They have human DNA, does that make them a dog or something?

[ddjeffries]

Except for the whole pregnancy thing

LOL pregnancy as a problem. WOW. Sounds like the pregnant woman should make better choices before hand.

[boutons_deux]

They have human DNA, does that make them a dog or something?

zygote is not viable, has no brain which defines a human being. Let's call it a human bean.

[ddjeffries]

zygote is not viable, has no brain which defines a human being. Let's call it a human bean.

brain doesn't define a human being, other organisms have brains and aren't human. Unique DNA sequence is what defines a species.

[boutons_deux]

brain doesn't define a human being

as far as we know (can't talk the large sea mammals), the human brain is the organ that defines humanity. Other brains are (vastly) inferior (as far as we know).

Speech, reading, writing, abstract thought, sophisticated tool making, etc, etc, are all derived from the superiority of the human brain. brainless zygotes aren't human.

[Trainwreck2100]

brb gonna go to my local hospital's icu and shoot all the brain dead people

[boutons_deux]

brb gonna go to my local hospital's icu and shoot all the brain dead people

... who aren't fully human, anymore.

[ddjeffries]

as far as we know (can't talk the large sea mammals), the human brain is the organ that defines humanity. Other brains are (vastly) inferior (as far as we know).

Speech, reading, writing, abstract thought, sophisticated tool making, etc, etc, are all derived from the superiority of the human brain. brainless zygotes aren't human.

I wonder what the human brain is made up of at a molecular level... Human DNA. If a organism has human DNA, it won't develop into anything but a human. Same holds true for all species.

[boutons_deux]

I wonder what the human brain is made up of at a molecular level... Human DNA. If a organism has human DNA, it won't develop into anything but a human. Same holds true for all species.

so now you're saying human DNA makes zygote a human?

what about zygotes that develop severely damaged, dysfunctional nervous systems and non-viable babies?

10% to 20% of zygotes result in miscarriages before 12 weeks

and why are you pro-birth zealots not bombing fertility clinics, harassing and murdering fertility clinic staff, for disposing of zygotes?

[CosmicCowboy]

Does calling a baby a zygote really make it different? Abortion is fine with me, just call it what it is...killing unwanted babies before they are born.

[ddjeffries]

so now you're saying human DNA makes zygote a human?

what about zygotes that develop severely damaged, dysfunctional nervous systems and non-viable babies?

10% to 20% of zygotes result in miscarriages before 12 weeks

and why are you pro-birth zealots not bombing fertility clinics, harassing and murdering fertility clinic staff, for disposing of zygotes?

yes a human zygote is a human.

Are children with disabilities any less human?

bombing and murdering are wrong. Go fish.

[ddjeffries]

Does calling a baby a zygote really make it different? Abortion is fine with me, just call it what it is...killing unwanted babies before they are born.

honesty. I like it.

[boutons_deux]

yes a human zygote is a human.

Are children with disabilities any less human?

bombing and murdering are wrong. Go fish.

babies with non-viable brains, incapable of autonomy at any stage of their life, are sub-human.

[ddjeffries]

babies with non-viable brains, incapable of autonomy at any stage of their life, are sub-human.

What about adults and children without brain activity?

[boutons_deux]

What about adults and children without brain activity?

same, with no normally function HUMAN BRAIN, a person is not fully human.

Of course, ethics, morals, guilt, emotions cloud that brutally Darwinian assessment for most people, but facts is facts.

Humans didn't evolve over 100Ks years by dragging along tribal members who couldn't hold their own, who put the tribe at risk.

[spurraider21]

LOL pregnancy as a problem. WOW. Sounds like the pregnant woman should make better choices before hand.
or the men involved. or both.

either way, we are discussing the problem at hand, not what caused it. there were over 3 million unplanned pregnancies last year in the US. they happen.

[boutons_deux]

or the men involved.

nope, the white male misogynists are of course are not misandrists.

They're only interested in vagina and sex-life control of poor non-Euro-white poor women, aka, "breeders".

[ddjeffries]

or the men involved. or both.

either way, we are discussing the problem at hand, not what caused it. there were over 3 million unplanned pregnancies last year in the US. they happen.
The male is only fully responsibly when it's a case of rape. Other then that, in consensual sex, it's equal responsibility. As I said, sounds like better choices should have been made before hand, you always run the risk of pregnancy.

[ddjeffries]

same, with no normally function HUMAN BRAIN, a person is not fully human.

Of course, ethics, morals, guilt, emotions cloud that brutally Darwinian assessment for most people, but facts is facts.

Humans didn't evolve over 100Ks years by dragging along tribal members who couldn't hold their own, who put the tribe at risk.

thanks for finally being clear about it. Any human with mental disorders are not considered to be human in your book.

[spurraider21]

The male is only fully responsibly when it's a case of rape. Other then that, in consensual sex, it's equal responsibility. As I said, sounds like better choices should have been made before hand, you always run the risk of pregnancy.
It is equal. It's just funny since earlier you specifically said "women should make better decisions" and excluded men

[boutons_deux]

Any human with mental disorders are not considered to be human in your book.

You Lie

Any human whose brain is incapable of self-sustaining, autonomous life is sub-human. Meer "mental disorders", emotional problems are excluded from my definiton. Stephen Hawking's motor nervous system is shot, but his brain functions normally.

[Blake]

Nope not ok with it. But I would understand why more people would be ok with it.

If you're ok with people being ok with it, then by default you're ok with it. You're just wanting to walk the fence.

[CosmicCowboy]

same, with no normally function HUMAN BRAIN, a person is not fully human.

Of course, ethics, morals, guilt, emotions cloud that brutally Darwinian assessment for most people, but facts is facts.

Humans didn't evolve over 100Ks years by dragging along tribal members who couldn't hold their own, who put the tribe at risk.

The very reason we should scrape Boutons from the Spurstalk womb...:lol

[Spurminator]

This stuff needs to be seen for its wickedness. Surgeries save lives, abortions kill.

Abortions are a legal medical procedure.

You think they're "sick" because you are more comfortable with the government having authority over what's happening in a woman's body for 40 weeks than you are with that woman having that authority. I think THAT'S sick, and so does the Supreme Court.

Doctors discuss all sorts of gross procedures in ways that are uncomfortable with non-doctors. They even train on dead bodies! EWWWW!

There are an infinite number of ways you can twist normal medical practice to appeal to people's discomfort reflex, but ultimately you're not "exposing" anything.

[boutons_deux]

and the hidden aspect is the UNDUE BURDEN placed only on poor (black, brown) women.

all women (esp those anti-abortion Christians) above them can afford to have as many abortions as they want.

so racism, white supremacy, war on the non-white poor "breeders" are the hidden objectives of the anti-abortion mob, masquerading behind the sanctity of life

[ddjeffries]

Abortions are a legal medical procedure.

You think they're "sick" because you are more comfortable with the government having authority over what's happening in a woman's body for 40 weeks than you are with that woman having that authority. I think THAT'S sick, and so does the Supreme Court.

Doctors discuss all sorts of gross procedures in ways that are uncomfortable with non-doctors. They even train on dead bodies! EWWWW!

There are an infinite number of ways you can twist normal medical practice to appeal to people's discomfort reflex, but ultimately you're not "exposing" anything.

No I think its sick that you think a separate being with unique DNA is somehow part of a woman's body.

[ddjeffries]

If you're ok with people being ok with it, then by default you're ok with it. You're just wanting to walk the fence.


I'm not ok with people being ok with it. I just think its the lesser of two evils even though I still find it wrong.

[ddjeffries]

It is equal. It's just funny since earlier you specifically said "women should make better decisions" and excluded men

Yes because I obviously meant to exclude men in that sentence :lol. Of course they are responsible as well.

[ddjeffries]

8th or 9th video. Evidence of alleged born alive abortions.

cz1gRNPgMvE

[Spurminator]

No I think its sick that you think a separate being with unique DNA is somehow part of a woman's body.

You're putting words in my mouth. It's a separate being but it depends on (and dramatically affects) the woman's body, and she should have authority on what is happening inside of her body.

[CosmicCowboy]

8th or 9th video. Evidence of alleged born alive abortions.

cz1gRNPgMvE

This is quite common in late term abortions. To avoid them being "born alive" they kill the baby before it completely passes out of the birth canal.

[CosmicCowboy]

http://www.mpomerle.com/NoAbort/Images/PBA-Picture.gif

[spurraider21]

oh, abortions are an ugly process? didnt know that. thought it was all rainbows and butterflies

and :lol at that source and the wording

- doesnt use the word fetus once
- jams scissors into the baby's skull
- child's brains are sucked out
- dead baby is then removed

[CosmicCowboy]

oh, abortions are an ugly process? didnt know that. thought it was all rainbows and butterflies

and :lol at that source and the wording

- doesnt use the word fetus once
- jams scissors into the baby's skull
- child's brains are sucked out
- dead baby is then removed

Fetus? Seriously? Just be intellectually honest and call it what it is. Killing a baby. They use this procedure to keep the BABY from technically being BORN ALIVE.

[boutons_deux]

pro-birth fight to get the baby born, then y'all cut child support, school lunches, refuse to raise the minimum wage (a tremendous help to poor mothers), refuse to subsidize birth control, etc, etc.

all y'all are hypocritical sob's pro-birth, but absolutely not pro-child or pro-life

and of course, richer women can still afford to get their abortions anywhere

war on poor vaginas

[CosmicCowboy]

Botons stupidly over simplistic stereotypical caricatures of positions on complicated issues are disgusting.

[boutons_deux]

Botons stupidly over simplistic stereotypical caricatures of positions on complicated issues are disgusting.

simpler is always better, and there ain't nothing simpler than all y'all Bible humping, anti-science, racist, misogynist fuckoffs.

btw, say why my #616 msg is wrong, or "too simple" for ya.

[spurraider21]

Botons stupidly over simplistic stereotypical caricatures of positions on complicated issues are disgusting.
as opposed to that caricature you posted?

[spurraider21]

Fetus? Seriously? Just be intellectually honest and call it what it is. Killing a baby. They use this procedure to keep the BABY from technically being BORN ALIVE.
do you know what a fetus is?

do you know what a baby is?

i dont think you do

[CosmicCowboy]

do you know what a fetus is?

do you know what a baby is?

i dont think you do

Dumbass. Do you know what a late term partial birth abortion is? it is used to abort potential VIABLE babies.

[spurraider21]

Dumbass. Do you know what a late term partial birth abortion is? it is used to abort potential VIABLE babies.
those aren't babies. here let me help so you can stop repeating your mistakes

https://i.gyazo.com/9cd37617c96fce8b11c008ccc0e8fbf1.png

https://i.gyazo.com/37f5aec9394607e7233d250ad6fa5a1d.png

[CosmicCowboy]

simpler is always better, and there ain't nothing simpler than all y'all Bible humping, anti-science, racist, misogynist fuckoffs.

btw, say why my #616 msg is wrong, or "too simple" for ya.

And Booshit, I am on record several times in this thread saying I am pro-choice.

I'm just saying call it what it is. Killing babies before they are born.

[spurraider21]

And Booshit, I am on record several times in this thread saying I am pro-choice.

I'm just saying call it what it is. Killing babies before they are born.
there is no such things as that. babies are specifically defined as a young child AFTER it is born.

talking about "babies before they are born" is like talking about "paintings before they were painted"

[CosmicCowboy]

those aren't babies. here let me help so you can stop repeating your mistakes

https://i.gyazo.com/9cd37617c96fce8b11c008ccc0e8fbf1.png

https://i.gyazo.com/37f5aec9394607e7233d250ad6fa5a1d.png

In a partial birth abortion the mother is in labor, the baby slides ALMOST all the way out the birth canal and then the head is held in the birth canal...then they stab it in the head before it is completely out to kill it.

I don't need a dictionary to tell me that was a baby and your argument is fucking stupid.

[spurraider21]

In a partial birth abortion the mother is in labor, the baby slides ALMOST all the way out the birth canal and then they stab it in the head before it is completely out to kill it.
you keep calling it a baby, which is by definition... wrong. repeating your mistake doesn't make it right

[CosmicCowboy]

We can both play that semantic game but your argument is stupid. From another dictionary:

baby
[bey-bee]
Spell Syllables
Synonyms Examples Word Origin
noun, plural babies.
1.
an infant or very young child.
2.
a newborn or very young animal.
3.
the youngest member of a family, group, etc.
4.
an immature or childish person.
5.
a human fetus.

[spurraider21]

you just keep using the word baby to make a more powerful emotional case

its a see-through act

[CosmicCowboy]

you just keep using the word baby to make a more powerful emotional case

its a see-through act

It's being honest and accepting the implications of the act instead of hiding behind semantic synonyms like fetus and zygote trying to dehumanize it.

[spurraider21]

It's being honest and accepting the implications of the act instead of hiding behind semantic synonyms like fetus and zygote trying to dehumanize it.
i have not dehumanized it. i've even argued it's human.

i just understand the difference between pre-birth and post-birth

and the standards they go by for abortions is viability. as far as legally performed abortions go, if the fetus could survive outside the womb, it cant be aborted

[CosmicCowboy]

i have not dehumanized it. i've even argued it's human.

i just understand the difference between pre-birth and post-birth

and the standards they go by for abortions is viability. as far as legally performed abortions go, if the fetus could survive outside the womb, it cant be aborted

You are wrong.

[spurraider21]

You are wrong.
Planned Parenthood v Casey established the viability standard. It's the governing law right now. It replaced the horribly flawed "trimester" system from Roe v Wade

[Blake]

I just think its the lesser of two evils even though I still find it wrong.

which is the lesser of the two evils?

[CosmicCowboy]

Planned Parenthood v Casey established the viability standard. It's the governing law right now. It replaced the horribly flawed "trimester" system from Roe v Wade

Bullshit

Casey did not define a specific date of viability. Casey did recognize that viability could occur before the third trimester. Casey did not resolve the conflict between viability and undue burden.

[spurraider21]

Bullshit

Casey did not define a specific date of viability. Casey did recognize that viability could occur before the third trimester.
i never said they established a date. that's the point of viability instead of trimesters. it's flexible. trimesters are stupid, and casey eliminated the trimester rule completely.

[CosmicCowboy]

United States: In 2003, from data collected in those areas that sufficiently reported gestational age, it was found that 6.2% of abortions were conducted between 13 and 15 weeks, 4.2% between 16 and 20 weeks, and 1.4% at or after 21 weeks

[spurraider21]

as long as a doctor determines it isn't viable, it's legal.

[CosmicCowboy]

as long as a doctor determines it isn't viable, it's legal.

Dude, there is no national law governing. It's state by state.

And yeah, if the doctor stabs it in the head before it clears the birth canal the doctor can certainly say it wasn't viable.

[spurraider21]

Dude, there is no national law governing. It's state by state.
i'm speaking of the supreme court decision, which supersedes state law


And yeah, if the doctor stabs it in the head before it clears the birth canal the doctor can certainly say it wasn't viable.
viability is determined BEFORE the procedure

[CosmicCowboy]

i'm speaking of the supreme court decision, which supersedes state law


viability is determined BEFORE the procedure

You believe in the tooth fairy too?

[spurraider21]

and now we've reached THIS point of the discussion... sigh

i'm speaking of legally performed abortions. for the record, i'm against all illegally performed abortions.

[Phenomanul]

i have not dehumanized it. i've even argued it's human.

i just understand the difference between pre-birth and post-birth

and the standards they go by for abortions is viability. as far as legally performed abortions go, if the fetus could survive outside the womb, it cant be aborted

That's the part you guys aren't getting. No baby can survive on its own. They ALL need parental attention/nurturing of some sort to supply their most basic needs. Otherwise they all die. BY VERY DEFINITION for someone so keen on playing semantics games, no child is "viable" on their own.

Babies are being killed before they get a chance to draw their own breath. Pining them against the birth canal to stab them in the skull and suck out their brains, only to suggest they weren't really "born" and hence aren't real "babies" is disingenuousness of the utmost kind.

[CosmicCowboy]

and now we've reached THIS point of the discussion... sigh

i'm speaking of legally performed abortions. for the record, i'm against all illegally performed abortions.

It is the gray area of viability.

Fact: before 21 weeks 0% are viable

Fact; after 27 weeks virtual 100% viability

Fact: According to the Guttmacher institute, 1.1% of abortions, or 13,310 happen after 21 weeks, including roughly 1,700 after 25 weeks.

[Spurminator]

And yeah, if the doctor stabs it in the head before it clears the birth canal the doctor can certainly say it wasn't viable.

viability is determined BEFORE the procedure

You believe in the tooth fairy too?

That's a pretty fucked up view you have of OB/GYNs, CC. You really think they're just casually killing healthy babies out of sick pleasure?

[CosmicCowboy]

That's the part you guys aren't getting. No baby can survive on its own. They ALL need parental attention/nurturing of some sort to supply their most basic needs. Otherwise they all die. BY VERY DEFINITION for someone so keen on playing semantics games, no child is "viable" on their own.

Babies are being killed before they get a chance to draw their own breath. Pining them against the birth canal to stab them in the skull and suck out their brains, only to suggest they weren't really "born" and hence aren't real "babies" is disingenuousness of the utmost kind.

Don't be so narrow minded. They are killing a fetus, not a baby...:rolleyes

[CosmicCowboy]

That's a pretty fucked up view you have of OB/GYNs, CC. You really think they're just casually killing healthy babies out of sick pleasure?

Not necessarily. I'm sure in some cases it comes down to post birth quality of life...genetic issues, birth defects, downs syndrome, etc. where the parent decides late in the pregnancy that it's best for all to terminate. I'm not saying it's always a flippant easy decision for anyone.

[Spurminator]

That's the part you guys aren't getting. No baby can survive on its own. They ALL need parental attention/nurturing of some sort to supply their most basic needs. Otherwise they all die. BY VERY DEFINITION for someone so keen on playing semantics games, no child is "viable" on their own.

There are any number of options for supporting the attention and nutritional needs of a viable baby once it is born. We don't require mothers to keep and care for their babies after birth.

[Spurminator]

Not necessarily. I'm sure in some cases it comes down to post birth quality of life...genetic issues, birth defects, downs syndrome, etc. where the parent decides late in the pregnancy that it's best for all to terminate.

In almost every single case, it's that.

[spurraider21]

That's the part you guys aren't getting. No baby can survive on its own. They ALL need parental attention/nurturing of some sort to supply their most basic needs. Otherwise they all die. BY VERY DEFINITION for someone so keen on playing semantics games, no child is "viable" on their own.
viability is not about nutrition or housing.

The court defined viable to mean capable of prolonged life outside the mother's womb. It said this included fetuses that doctors expected to be sustained by respirators.


Babies are being killed before they get a chance to draw their own breath. Pining them against the birth canal to stab them in the skull and suck out their brains, only to suggest they weren't really "born" and hence aren't real "babies" is disingenuousness of the utmost kind.
you're anti-abortion/pro-life. i'm not.

c'est la vie

[Phenomanul]

That's a pretty fucked up view you have of OB/GYNs, CC. You really think they're just casually killing healthy babies out of sick pleasure?

It's always about the money. Naïve to think otherwise...

That said, anyone who's become so desensitized to commit repeated partial birth abortions in the manner described above IS a sick individual. Who repeatedly stabs other humans in the back of the skull, proceeds to suck out their brains and then watches their skulls collapse? And you're suggesting this practice isn't horrific in and of itself? You all are just as deranged for defending the practice - and have as much blood on your hands as the executioner doctors that perform these deeds.

[CosmicCowboy]

In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute collected questionnaires from 1,900 women in the United States who came to clinics to have abortions. Of the 1,900 questioned, 420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks. These 420 women were asked to choose among a list of reasons they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. The results were as follows:[2]

71% Woman didn't recognize she was pregnant or misjudged gestation
48% Woman found it hard to make arrangements for abortion
33% Woman were afraid to tell her partner or parents
24% Woman took time to decide to have an abortion
8% Woman waited for her relationship to change
8% Someone pressured woman not to have abortion
6% Something changed after woman became pregnant
6% Woman didn't know timing is important
5% Woman didn't know she could get an abortion
2% A fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy
11% Other
A new study in 2013 shows that most women seeking late term abortion "fit at least one of five profiles: They were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and nulliparous."

[Blake]

And you're suggesting this practice isn't horrific in and of itself? You all are just as deranged for defending the practice - and have as much blood on your hands as the executioner doctors that perform these deeds.

What if the mother's life is at risk?

Are you ok with the abortion or should the government force the mother to go through with it?

[CosmicCowboy]

What if the mother's life is at risk?

Are you ok with the abortion or should the government force the mother to go through with it?

That is actually extremely rare.

[Spurminator]

It's always about the money. Naïve to think otherwise...

That said, anyone who's become so desensitized to commit repeated partial birth abortions in the manner described above IS a sick individual. Who repeatedly stabs other humans in the back of the skull, proceeds to suck out their brains and then watches their skulls collapse? And you're suggesting this practice isn't horrific in and of itself? You all are just as deranged for defending the practice - and have as much blood on your hands as the executioner doctors that perform these deeds.

Something tells me you've never told an OB/GYN this to his/her face. Try it.

[Blake]

That is actually extremely rare.

but it happens

[Phenomanul]

viability is not about nutrition or housing.

The court defined viable to mean capable of prolonged life outside the mother's womb. It said this included fetuses that doctors expected to be sustained by respirators.


The fact that the court has to gerrymander the definition of the word viable to better suit their agenda is telling enough. No child can subsist outside of the womb for very long without succumbing to the elements.

No blanket? Hypothermia --> death
No food? --> death
No water? --> death
Exposure to sunlight? --> heatstroke --> death

If your only recourse is to suggest that the need ventilators suggests that babies aren't viable, then I know many babies who by your definition were never viable at all... except some of them are already 30 years of age.

[spurraider21]

If your only recourse is to suggest that the need ventilators suggests that babies aren't viable, then I know many babies who by your definition were never viable at all... except some of them are already 30 years of age.
lol you cant even read. babies in need of respirators ARE still considered viable

[Spurminator]

The fact that the court has to gerrymander the definition of the word viable to better suit their agenda is telling enough. No child can subsist outside of the womb for very long without succumbing to the elements.

No blanket? Hypothermia --> death
No food? --> death
No water? --> death
Exposure to sunlight? --> heatstroke --> death

If your only recourse is to suggest that the need ventilators suggests that babies aren't viable, then I know many babies who by your definition were never viable at all... except some of them are already 30 years of age.

There is absolutely no one advocating that anyone should be legally allowed to leave a baby alone in the elements.

[CosmicCowboy]

I actually didn't intend for this to degenerate into the "viability" issue. It's just about being clear about terminology. Even if the pre-21 week abortion victim is not "viable" lets still call it what it is...killing a future baby. Hiding behind the term fetus or zygote to justify and attempt to dehumanize it is just intellectually dishonest.

[Phenomanul]

Something tells me you've never told an OB/GYN this to his/her face. Try it.

If they're into the hobby of killing defenseless babies, why not? Just because they're doctors doesn't mean they are above reproof.

Truth is, I haven't had any children nor have I had the opportunity to talk to an abortion performing doctor. It's not like it's a common occurrence to run into them at Academy, the airport, some restaurant, etc... and for them to come out and say, "I perform abortions for a living". Not all OB/GYN perform abortions. You make it sound like it's the lifeblood of the field - for PP centers perhaps - but not at large.

[Phenomanul]

There is absolutely no one advocating that anyone should be legally allowed to leave a baby alone in the elements.

Just showing you how silly it is for anyone then to evaluate their viability when technically none of them are.

[Phenomanul]

lol you cant even read. babies in need of respirators ARE still considered viable

Perhaps, but your reasoning is still stupid.

Changing definitions to avoid calling murder for what it really is.


Stab the neck, suck out brains, collapse the skull, end a life. IT'S FAIRLY OBVIOUS and self-evident. Except for the pro-choice crowd who have to redefine things just to justify the practice.

[Blake]

Just showing you how silly it is for anyone then to evaluate their viability when technically none of them are.

ok you're avoiding my other question so how about this one:

If a 10 year old girl gets raped and pregnant, are you ok with her getting an abortion?

[Spurminator]

Hiding behind the term fetus or zygote to justify and attempt to dehumanize it is just intellectually dishonest.

Fetus and zygote are completely accurate scientific terms. How is it intellectually dishonest? You're suggesting we should always appeal to emotion?

[Spurminator]

Just showing you how silly it is for anyone then to evaluate their viability when technically none of them are.

It's not silly. Prior to viability, the mother is the only thing keeping the fetus alive. The mother has no option to pass the fetus along to someone else who can care for it. It is completely on her.

After viability, there are a multitude of options for passing the baby along to someone who can care for it.

[Spurminator]

If they're into the hobby of killing defenseless babies, why not? Just because they're doctors doesn't mean they are above reproof.

Truth is, I haven't had any children nor have I had the opportunity to talk to an abortion performing doctor. It's not like it's a common occurrence to run into them at Academy, the airport, some restaurant, etc... and for them to come out and say, "I perform abortions for a living". Not all OB/GYN perform abortions. You make it sound like it's the lifeblood of the field - for PP centers perhaps - but not at large.

Pretty much any OB/GYN you choose to talk to has some understanding of abortion and probably supports it. At the very least, they will fall under your "just as deranged for defending the practice - and have as much blood on your hands as the executioner doctors that perform these deeds" category.

So ask them what they think.

[Phenomanul]

Blake, I'm not here to cater to your questions. You've never once admitted you were wrong about anything. Why should I entertain a discussion with you at all? (don't answer the hypothetical as I don't really care to suit your whims). Besides, my lunch break is over.

[Blake]

Blake, I'm not here to cater to your questions. You've never once admitted you were wrong about anything. Why should I entertain a discussion with you at all? (don't answer the hypothetical as I don't really care to suit your whims). Besides, my lunch break is over.

It's a real question based on a real life scenario, coward.

I'm not here to change your mind tbh. I'm asking because it never ceases to amaze me how pro lifers buckle at that question. It's honestly fascinating and telling to watch.

[Phenomanul]

Pretty much any OB/GYN you choose to talk to has some understanding of abortion and probably supports it. At the very least, they will fall under your "just as deranged for defending the practice - and have as much blood on your hands as the executioner doctors that perform these deeds" category.

So ask them what they think.

My sister is an OB/GYN in New Jersey. She holds a more staunch pro-life position than I do. She's never once in her 12 years of practice performed an abortion.

[Phenomanul]

It's a real question based on a real life scenario, coward.

I'm not here to change your mind tbh. I'm asking because it never ceases to amaze me how pro lifers buckle at that question. It's honestly fascinating and telling to watch.


I have a clear position for that scenario, but don't have time to deal with your ad hominems, your strawmen and your non-sequitors. Unfortunately, you don't get to dictate when I answer what and to whom.

[Spurminator]

My sister is an OB/GYN in New Jersey. She holds a more staunch pro-life position than I do. She's never once in her 12 years of practice performed an abortion.

She's rare. Ask another one.

[Phenomanul]

Bye peeps. Out.

[Phenomanul]

She's rare. Ask another one.

I'll have her ask her colleagues. But I don't understand how you could make the assumption that the field of OB/GYN who by and large was handed the keys "to bringing life into the world" --> somehow became the field of death dealers. There are MANY more things that they are responsible for than the practice of abortions.

Alright bye.

[Spurminator]

I'll have her ask her colleagues. But I don't understand how you could make the assumption that the field of OB/GYN who by and large was handed the keys "to bringing life into the world" --> somehow became the field of death dealers. There are MANY more things that they are responsible for than the practice of abortions.


I'm aware of that. They are in the field to care for women's health. You seem to think those who do practice (or support) abortions are demented baby killers. I would be interested to hear you tell this to one of those doctors.

And if your sister and her colleagues are from one of those religious clinics operating on the sole basis of discouraging women from having abortions, that's not who I'm talking about.

[Blake]

I have a clear position for that scenario, but don't have time to deal with your ad hominems, your strawmen and your non-sequitors. Unfortunately, you don't get to dictate when I answer what and to whom.

Nobody is saying you have to answer. Unfortunately, you telling me twice that you don't have time to say a simple "yes" or "no" makes you look like a quivering coward.

You're not the first, definitely not the last religious pro-lifer to run away from that very real scenario.

[CosmicCowboy]

A recent survey of 1800 OB/GYN's found that only 14% were able or willing to perform abortions.

[Spurminator]

A recent survey of 1800 OB/GYN's found that only 14% were able or willing to perform abortions.

That's the key word.

[CosmicCowboy]

That's the key word.

Why? I'm sure they all have access to facilities and the talent to use them. It's not a particularly high tech procedure.

Whether or not you think abortion is a necessary service to offer (and I do), we ought to remember the distinction between 'pro-choice' and 'pro-abortion'. At the end of the day, elective (ie. non-medically necessary) abortion is the opposite of everything a doctor otherwise does in their job - it is killing something which isn't sick and isn't making anyone else sick. If many doctors feel they cannot reconcile this act with the life-preserving demands of their profession, they should have an enshrined right not to participate.

[Spurminator]

Why? I'm sure they all have access to facilities and the talent to use them. It's not a particularly high tech procedure.

Most of them don't work in facilities that meet all of the necessary (and increasingly strict) requirements to even be able to perform abortions. Why do you think there are only 10 abortion clinics left in Texas?

Unfortunately we haven't left the decision to doctors and their patients, we've left it with politicians.


Whether or not you think abortion is a necessary service to offer (and I do), we ought to remember the distinction between 'pro-choice' and 'pro-abortion'. At the end of the day, elective (ie. non-medically necessary) abortion is the opposite of everything a doctor otherwise does in their job - it is killing something which isn't sick and isn't making anyone else sick. If many doctors feel they cannot reconcile this act with the life-preserving demands of their profession, they should have an enshrined right not to participate.

I agree, but that's not why only 14% perform abortions.

[CosmicCowboy]

Most of them don't work in facilities that meet all of the necessary (and increasingly strict) requirements to even be able to perform abortions. Why do you think there are only 10 abortion clinics left in Texas?

Unfortunately we haven't left the decision to doctors and their patients, we've left it with politicians.



I agree, but that's not why only 14% perform abortions.

Oh please. It's not "most".

The law only applied to clinics that did not have admitting privileges to a real hospital in case something went wrong.

Abortions don't have to be done in a clinic. There are hundreds if not thousands of office clinics and hospitals OB/GYNS could use if they chose to.

That argument is Boutonish.

[spurraider21]

Perhaps, but your reasoning is still stupid.
lol

"i was wrong, and based an argument on a false premise... but ignore that, you're the stupid one"

:lol

[spurraider21]

Does calling a baby a zygote really make it different? Abortion is fine with me, just call it what it is...killing unwanted babies before they are born.
why is abortion ok with you?

why are you ok with killing babies?

what is wrong with you?

[CosmicCowboy]

why is abortion ok with you?

why are you ok with killing babies?

what is wrong with you?

Raising a baby right is an expensive, life changing experience...Cost estimates are up to around $350,000 each average to do it right. After raising two and getting them through college this feels pretty close. I can afford it but a lot of people cant or don't want to.

If a mother feels like raising a baby is not the right choice for her at the time I have no problem with her killing her baby. Supreme Court even says it's OK.

[Spurminator]

Oh please. It's not "most".

The law only applied to clinics that did not have admitting privileges to a real hospital in case something went wrong.

Abortions don't have to be done in a clinic. There are hundreds of hospitals OB/GYNS could use if they chose to.

That argument is Boutonish.

Look if you want to go on believing 86% of OB/GYN's oppose abortion on moral grounds then go for it, but I'd recommend you talk to one. There is a multitude of reasons they don't perform them in their clinics and it's very rarely "I don't believe in it."

[spurraider21]

Raising a baby right is an expensive, life changing experience...Cost estimates are up to around $350,000 average. After raising two and getting them through college this feels about right. I can afford it but a lot of people cant or don't want to.

If a mother feels like raising a baby is not the right choice for her at the time I have no problem with her killing her baby. Supreme Court even says it's OK.
wow so you think a mother's inconvenience is an excuse to murder a baby? so sickening

why is abortion ok with you, but its not ok to kill an infant if its an expensive inconvenience? or are you ok with that too?

[spurraider21]

why is it ok to kill a baby in the womb but not a baby that just left the womb?

[Blake]

lol

"i was wrong, and based an argument on a false premise... but ignore that, you're the stupid one"

:lol

:cry why are you attacking me with ad hominems, stupid :cry

[CosmicCowboy]

why is it ok to kill a baby in the womb but not a baby that just left the womb?

Ask the SCOTUS. One is legal the other isn't. I didn't make the rules.

Now you are just playing stupid.

[CosmicCowboy]

Personally, if a woman doesn't think she has the capacity to raise a child right I would rather her kill it in the womb than have the child and raise it in poverty and neglect.

And if a pregnant rich party girl wants to have an abortion so she won't have to stop drinking for the next 8 months I'm OK with that too.

It's just none of my business.

[spurraider21]

Ask the SCOTUS. One is legal the other isn't. I didn't make the rules.

Now you are just playing stupid.
i'm asking why you are personally ok with killing babies before birth but not after birth

im not asking you to tell me what the SCOTUS thinks

[CosmicCowboy]

i'm asking why you are personally ok with killing babies before birth but not after birth

im not asking you to tell me what the SCOTUS thinks

Hey...if you want to kill your baby, go for it. It's yours.

Just don't touch mine.

[Blake]

Hey...if you want to kill your baby, go for it. It's yours.

Just don't touch mine.

You're really ok with murder? Damn.

[CosmicCowboy]

You're really ok with murder? Damn.

If you have a piece of shit parent that doesn't want a kid so bad that they would kill it the kid is probably better off dead anyway.

[spurraider21]

Hey...if you want to kill your baby, go for it. It's yours.

Just don't touch mine.
you didnt answer my question.

why is it ok to kill babies before birth BUT NOT OK to kill them just after birth?

[CosmicCowboy]

Killing a baby you don't want is commendable...that takes Caitlyn Jenner level courage!

[spurraider21]

:lol dodging

[CosmicCowboy]

you didnt answer my question.

why is it ok to kill babies before birth BUT NOT OK to kill them just after birth?

I told you. I don't give a shit if you kill your baby after birth. Morally it's the same as killing it before birth.

Just don't try to kill mine.

[spurraider21]

wow cosmic cowboy thinks its fine to kill children

until what age do you think murder should be legal?

[CosmicCowboy]

wow cosmic cowboy thinks its fine to kill children

until what age do you think murder should be legal?

:lmao

Idiot that you are you again confuse moral with legal.

[Blake]

:lmao

Idiot that you are you again confuse moral with legal.

Cmon I wanna know the answer too. What age are you morally stopping at?

[CosmicCowboy]

Cmon I wanna know the answer too. What age are you morally stopping at?

What stage of pregnancy are you morally stopping at? The point I am making is the moral equivalence of the personal decision and you dullards don't seem to quite grasp it.

If SCOTUS said it was legal to kill kids until they entered pre-K would that make it morally OK in your mind? After all they cry and shit their pants and are rather irritating.

[Blake]

What stage of pregnancy are you morally stopping at? The point I am making is the moral equivalence of the personal decision and you dullards don't seem to quite grasp it.

I admit I go back and forth on it, but I'm morally ok with full term being aborted.

But once the baby is out and alive on it's own, it's a whole different ballgame.



If SCOTUS said it was legal to kill kids until they entered pre-K would that make it morally OK in your mind? After all they cry and shit their pants and are rather irritating.

no I wouldn't be ok with that. You're the only one I know in that boat.

The question is to you though. What age do you stop at?

After all, teenagers cry about getting IPhones and never help around the house and can be whiny and irritating as fuck.

[CosmicCowboy]

I admit I go back and forth on it, but I'm morally ok with full term being aborted.

But once the baby is out and alive on it's own, it's a whole different ballgame.



Fuck no I wouldn't be ok with that. You're the only one I know in that boat.

Still the dullard. I was making the point that the personal choice to have an abortion is morally equivalent to killing a kid. You aren't being intellectually consistent if you can't grasp that. If you can make that personal choice and live with it I can accept it without condoning it.

[spurraider21]

you said its fine with you if people kill their babies.

at what age do you think it stops being fine for people to kill their children

[Blake]

Still the dullard. I was making the point that the personal choice to have an abortion is morally equivalent to killing a kid. You aren't being intellectually consistent if you can't grasp that. If you can make that personal choice and live with it I can accept it without condoning it.

I think there's a big moral difference between an embryo and an infant that can function without being attached to the mother. I don't see an intellectual inconsistency.

Answer the question, chicken.

[CosmicCowboy]

you said its fine with you if people kill their babies.

at what age do you think it stops being fine for people to kill their children

You and Blake really are dumb, aren't you?

Chump is smart enough to pull this kind of shit off about half the time.

You guys? :lol

not so well

[spurraider21]

dodge duly noted

[CosmicCowboy]

No dodge to it. I don't kill babies either alive or unborn but I also have no business telling you what to do with yours.

What you choose that fits in your moral code is your business, not mine. Scraping a fetus out of the womb is still ending a life. The academic argument of viability is just your justification and rationalization for ending the life.

[spurraider21]

you said you are ok with abortions

you acknowledge that abortion is killing babies

you have said you are ok with other people killing their babies

until what age are you ok with people slaughtering their children?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

No dodge to it. I don't kill babies either alive or unborn but I also have no business telling you what to do with yours.

What you choose that fits in your moral code is your business, not mine. Scraping a fetus out of the womb is still ending a life. The academic argument of viability is just your justification and rationalization for ending the life.

Then so are bugs and slime. Human life is what matters and simply having DNA is not a suitable standard. Notions of soul are fantasy and there is no chance of consciousness without a brain.

It is amusing having you label an argument 'academic' as if that is justification to dismiss it. Should we use your Bubba-think instead, cracker?

[Blake]

You and Blake really are dumb, aren't you?

Chump is smart enough to pull this kind of shit off about half the time.

You guys? :lol

not so well

Lol. you're assuming we all must intellectually agree with your definition of a human life. Because the dictionary says so!

now answer his question dull ass

[CosmicCowboy]

you said you are ok with abortions

you acknowledge that abortion is killing babies

you have said you are ok with other people killing their babies

until what age are you ok with people slaughtering their children?

As far as I'm concerned you can kill your crawling shitting kid any time you can justify that it's morally OK just like you can morally justify aborting your kid.. You still killed it.

It is against the law to kill the crawling shitting kid and you will hopefully go to jail or be executed and I'm OK with that too.

Really doesn't matter to me personally one way or another.

[Blake]

As far as I'm concerned you can kill your crawling shitting kid any time you can justify that it's morally OK just like you can morally justify aborting your kid.. You still killed it.

It is against the law to kill the crawling shitting kid and you will hopefully go to jail or be executed and I'm OK with that too.

Really doesn't matter to me personally one way or another.

Then you're intellectually ok with handing a woman a death penalty for having an abortion.

Neat.

[CosmicCowboy]

Then you're intellectually ok with handing a woman a death penalty for having an abortion.

Neat.

You stupid fuck. Didn't say that at all. SCOTUS says abortion is legal. I don't give a shit if she wants to kill her unborn baby.

[spurraider21]

Really doesn't matter to me personally one way or another.
Slaughtering of children doesn't matter to you one way or another. Cool.

[Blake]

You stupid fuck. Didn't say that at all. SCOTUS says abortion is legal. I don't give a shit if she wants to kill her unborn baby.

By default you're morally ok with execution of a woman over an abortion, fucking dull fuck.

[CosmicCowboy]

Dumbshit. Keep building straw men. I told you time and time again. I don't give a fuck if women get abortions. Just be honest and call it killing unwanted babies and quit playing your stupid semantic rationalization games...

[Blake]

Dumbshit. Keep building straw men. I told you time and time again. I don't give a fuck if women get abortions. Just be honest and call it killing unwanted babies and quit playing your stupid semantic rationalization games...

how bout you be honest and admit you don't know what the fuck you're talking about when it comes to the definition of a human being.

that was pretty funny the way you used the dictionary to define it and tried to force your definition down our throats or else be called a "dullard"

Do it again.

:lol

[Blake]

In a partial birth abortion the mother is in labor, the baby slides ALMOST all the way out the birth canal and then the head is held in the birth canal...then they stab it in the head before it is completely out to kill it.

I don't need a dictionary to tell me that was a baby and your argument is fucking stupid.

I guess you don't need science to tell you either.

Rofl.

[ElNono]

Dude, there is no national law governing. It's state by state.

And yeah, if the doctor stabs it in the head before it clears the birth canal the doctor can certainly say it wasn't viable.

It's state by state, but Casey set what the constitutional threshold is. In other words, if State law does not comply with the Casey viability standard, there's a high likelihood the law is unconstitutional.

[ElNono]

baby, fetus... it's all semantics... AFAIK, the breaking point is supposed to be when the relationship stops being parasitic.

[spurraider21]

Dumbshit. Keep building straw men. I told you time and time again. I don't give a fuck if women get abortions. Just be honest and call it killing unwanted babies and quit playing your stupid semantic rationalization games...
- you dont give a fuck if women get abortions
- getting abortion is killing babies
- ergo, you dont give a fuck if women kill babies
- you have also said you dont care if women kill their babies after birth

what im asking is if there's an age where you start caring about women killing their children. do you care of women kill their 2 year old child? 5 year old child? 10? what's the cutoff?

[Blake]

CC ejected

[Blake]

baby, fetus... it's all semantics... AFAIK, the breaking point is supposed to be when the relationship stops being parasitic.

The question that nobody can agree on is when does the fetus become a human with a right to life

[CosmicCowboy]

CC ejected

No I'm just ignoring your stupidity.

BTW did your wife scrape your inferior fetus's while she was cucking you and interviewing other sperm donors?

[Blake]

No I'm just ignoring your stupidity.

Semantics

[Blake]

BTW did your wife scrape your inferior fetus's while she was cucking you and interviewing other sperm donors?

tbh it's pretty hilarious how quickly you go ad hominem when you get frustrated and angry when someone disagrees with you.

:lol

[boutons_deux]

Undercover Planned Parenthood Videos Were Altered, Analysis Finds

WASHINGTON — Planned Parenthood (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/planned_parenthood_federation_of_america/index.html?inline=nyt-org) on Thursday gave congressional leaders and a committee that is investigating allegations of criminality at its clinics an analysis it commissioned concluding that “manipulation” of undercover videos by abortion opponents make those recordings unreliable for any official inquiry.

“A thorough review of these videos in consultation with qualified experts found that they do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict,” said the analysis of a private research company.

(http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html)Shortly after release of the analysis, the anti-abortion group responsible for the videos dismissed the attempted debunking as “a complete failure,” and attributed gaps identified in the videos to “bathroom breaks and waiting periods.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html)

[boutons_deux]

CNN's Jake Tapper Allows GOP Guest To Get Away With False Claim About Planned Parenthood

Tapper Asks Guests To "Agree To Disagree" Over False Claim That "94 Percent" Of PPFA Services Are Abortions

http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/08/30/cnns-jake-tapper-allows-gop-guest-to-get-away-w/205257

CNN entertainment-for-profit channel, peopled with entertainers, not journalists, enables LIARS, who are encouraged to keep LYING, the fundamental Repug strategy in creating their fantasy world.

the bullshit:

Repugs/VRWC/Christians/1% tell a LIE and then, sucking up to false equivalence of balance, "journalists" say "on the other hand"..., giving credibility to the LIES.

[TheSanityAnnex]

CNN's Jake Tapper Allows GOP Guest To Get Away With False Claim About Planned Parenthood

Tapper Asks Guests To "Agree To Disagree" Over False Claim That "94 Percent" Of PPFA Services Are Abortions

http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/08/30/cnns-jake-tapper-allows-gop-guest-to-get-away-w/205257

CNN entertainment-for-profit channel, peopled with entertainers, not journalists, enables LIARS, who are encouraged to keep LYING, the fundamental Repug strategy in creating their fantasy world.

the bullshit:

Repugs/VRWC/Christians/1% tell a LIE and then, sucking up to false equivalence of balance, "journalists" say "on the other hand"..., giving credibility to the LIES.




:lol boutons complaining about journalists standards

[boutons_deux]

:lol boutons complaining about journalists standards

TSA with nothing to say.

[ChumpDumper]

As far as I'm concerned you can kill your crawling shitting kid any time you can justify that it's morally OK just like you can morally justify aborting your kid.. You still killed it.

It is against the law to kill the crawling shitting kid and you will hopefully go to jail or be executed and I'm OK with that too.

Really doesn't matter to me personally one way or another.Someone who truly did not give a shit wouldn't be hopeful that a person would be executed tbh.

[pgardn]

The question that nobody can agree on is when does the fetus become a human with a right to life

Actually it's not even at that stage. Some say it's fertilization. Some say when sperm attaches to egg.
To which others respond, "what stage in fertilization, right as the DNA from dad enters the egg?"

It is a very difficult question from a biology perspective. This problem is not usually dealt with by knee jerks. It's easier to just pass on it. Some religions don't even like males to waste sperm unnecessarily unless it occurs during coitus in which case only one sperm wins (usually anyway). Biology is a very disturbing science for the ill-informed. Avante and evolution is a brutal example.

[Spurminator]

The question that nobody can agree on is when does the fetus become a human with a right to life

... a right to life that supersedes the carrier's right to decide whether or not to continue carrying. Which is why the "when" should be irrelevant, because the answer should be never.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

... a right to life that supersedes the carrier's right to decide whether or not to continue carrying. Which is why the "when" should be irrelevant, because the answer should be never.

Insemination is just as arbitrary as birth or sperm to declare something human. The reason why the first trimester is chosen is because that is before the brain develops. There is no possibility of consciousness and all you have are notions of spirituality.

[ElNono]

... a right to life that supersedes the carrier's right to decide whether or not to continue carrying. Which is why the "when" should be irrelevant, because the answer should be never.

Maybe morally, but certainly not legally. The thing is, it's not just a carrier. The fetus/baby/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is wholly physiologically dependent on the host, at least for a given time.

During that time, it's entirely a parasitic relationship. It might not sound cute, but that's effectively what it is.

Until technology can safely transplant the fetus/baby/whatever-you-want-to-call-it into another host, you're going to have to deal with the host's rights competing with the fetus/baby/whatever-you-want-to-call-it rights.

[Spurminator]

Maybe morally, but certainly not legally. The thing is, it's not just a carrier. The fetus/baby/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is wholly physiologically dependent on the host, at least for a given time.

During that time, it's entirely a parasitic relationship. It might not sound cute, but that's effectively what it is.

Until technology can safely transplant the fetus/baby/whatever-you-want-to-call-it into another host, you're going to have to deal with the host's rights competing with the fetus/baby/whatever-you-want-to-call-it rights.

I may be misunderstanding your post but I think we're saying the same thing... I just probably articulated it poorly. No one can agree on when that human life supersedes the carrier's rights, but it is an irrelevant argument because it never does. The debate over when it's a "baby" is irrelevant, because its baby-ness should never give it the legal right to occupy its carrier's body against her will.

I feel the same way about the "what about rape" argument... Both of those arguments are distractions and compromises founded on pro-life assumptions that the fetus' "human-ness" and/or the mother's consent to sex undermine her right to determine what's happening inside her body.

[ElNono]

I may be misunderstanding your post but I think we're saying the same thing... I just probably articulated it poorly. No one can agree on when that human life supersedes the carrier's rights, but it is an irrelevant argument because it never does. The debate over when it's a "baby" is irrelevant, because its baby-ness should never give it the legal right to occupy its carrier's body against her will.

I feel the same way about the "what about rape" argument... Both of those arguments are distractions and compromises founded on pro-life assumptions that the fetus' "human-ness" and/or the mother's consent to sex undermine her right to determine what's happening inside her body.

Yeah, it's a competing rights problem.

[boutons_deux]

42 splices and counting: Here are 9 facts about the Planned Parenthood smear campaign you need to know

The scraps of conversation with Planned Parenthood employees that were recorded and released by fundamentalist Christian David Daleiden and his front organization, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), sounded shockingly nasty. But as details of the smear campaign emerge, we probably should be surprised that they didn’t sound worse.

Here are nine facts that put what you heard in context:

42 Splices –

According to forensic analysis (https://istandwithpp.org/files/9414/4068/4146/8-27-15-Analysis-Center-for-Medical-Progress-Videos-Forensic-Report.pdf) by Fusion GPS, the first five videos released by Daleiden and CMP, contained 42 splices where sentences were cut and patched to create the appearance of a seamless conversation. By design, these edits changed the meaning of individual sentences as well as the overall conversation. In one example, a Planned Parenthood staffer’s comment about lab protocols was edited to sound like she was talking about abortion procedures. Her words got echoed repeatedly by mainstream media who falsely assumed they knew what she was talking about.

Contradictory Evidence Omitted –

In a Colorado interview, a Planned Parenthood employee said 13 times that all fetal tissue donations must be reviewed by attorneys and follow all laws. All 13 times were omitted.

Edits in “Unedited Videos” –

The “unedited” videos released along with shorter excerpts were themselves edited, rendering them useless as evidence in legal cases or regulatory hearings.

(http://ow.ly/RBLxv)Thousands of Hours of Recordings –

To shock audiences and create the appearance of callous wrongdoing, abortion foes selectively released less than one percent of their recordings, compiling even smaller fragments to create viral videos. By Daleiden’s own report, CMP agents recorded “thousands of hours,” from which they selected the ten or twenty hours of (moderately edited) recordings to obtain a few minutes (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html?ref=topics) of (heavily spliced) inflammatory sentences.

Expensive Taxpayer-funded Investigations Find No Wrongdoing –

A growing list (http://www.mediamatters.org/research/2015/08/24/growing-list-of-planned-parenthood-investigatio/205116) of government committees in states including Massachusetts, Indiana, South Dakota, Georgia and Pennsylvania have now cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing, and in California and Texas lawmakers have also called for investigation of fraud by the Center for Medical Progress.

Yuck Factor –

Rather than seeking to expose wrongdoing, the campaign appears optimized to trigger a frenzy of disgust among religious conservatives, activating them for the upcoming campaign cycle. Research suggests that, in contrast to liberals (who base moral judgments primarily on questions of fairness and harm), many conservatives fail to differentiate between physical disgust and morality.

Conservative campaigns leverage this fact. Homophobes wielded the “yuck factor” (http://valerietarico.com/2015/07/24/the-yuck-factor-what-planned-parenthood-smears-homophobia-and-juvenile-jokes-have-in-common/) effectively for decades to block gay rights and are deploying the same strategy against reproductive rights. Repeated reference to fetal remains functions as a powerful arousal trigger for the Religious Right.

Gallows Humor –

Because black humor is a way people deal with stress, CMP was virtually guaranteed to catch shocking “callous, inappropriate” comments if they recorded long enough. Gruesome humor is particularly common among soldiers, doctors, EMT’s, medical researchers, farmworkers, nurses and others who work around bodily fluids and death. One friend commented that her nurse colleagues will joke rudely about their patients at one moment and then will be crying for the same patients an hour later.

Letting Down –

From a psychological standpoint, things we say and do in private (or among trusted, like-minded friends) are particularly vulnerable to being distorted by people with ill intent. That is because we rely on the other person to interpret any given statement within their experience of us. For example, after my bike is stolen, I can safely rant among friends about capital punishment for bike thieves only because my friends and family already carry the rest of the context: they know I oppose capital punishment. A Planned Parenthood employee joking about wanting a Lamborghini relies on the same unspoken understanding.

Not About Abortion –

The CMP smear campaign was designed not to reduce abortionbut rather to control who has sex, by heightening the threat of pregnancy and STI’s among young women. Secondarily, it was timed to feed Tea Party Republicans fodder for election campaigns (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/us/house-republicans-to-investigate-planned-parenthood-over-fetal-tissue.html?_r=0) . Since public dollars pay for no abortions, defunding Planned Parenthood would eliminate only their preventive care services, including birth control, with the ironic effect of driving up need and demand for abortion (http://valerietarico.com/2015/07/28/why-are-white-male-conservatives-forcing-more-abortions-and-births-on-poor-brown-women-six-theories/). It is part of a broader anti-birth-control campaign aimed at protecting biblical (Iron Age) family structures and gender roles (http://valerietarico.com/2015/06/11/uncoupling-why-the-right-feels-violated-by-consent-queers-contraceptives-and-child-protection/).

Don’t be deceived:

The religious conservatives behind the Planned Parenthood smear campaign have shown repeatedly that they are willing to harm women and families and even drive up abortions in order to control the sexuality of females and youth.

This isn’t about their hatred of Planned Parenthood, the healthcare nonprofit, it is about their hatred of planned parenthood, with two small “p’s.” It’s about their hatred of the changes in society that allow young people to create the lives and families of their choosing, free from the biological constraints that for most of human history have made pregnancy the price of sex.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/42-splices-and-counting-here-are-9-facts-about-the-planned-parenthood-smear-campaign-you-need-to-know/

[boutons_deux]

'Planned Parenthood Exposed: Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices . . .' (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/06/1418226/--Planned-Parenthood-Exposed-Examining-the-Horrific-Abortion-Practices)

No, that is not a headline from the latest edition of the National Enquirer. Incredibly, that is the title that the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has selected for a hearing that is scheduled to begin this Wednesday at 10 AM ET. The U.S. Congress can find no fig leaf, no verbiage, nor even any doublespeak to suggest that this hearing is anything other than an opportunity for political grandstanding as they re-open yet another front in the War on Women.

Gee whiz, I wonder what the hearing will find?

Perhaps you need a title like that to distract from the real purpose of the hearing, which is

to justify not only defunding Planned Parenthood, but completely gutting Title X and leaving millions of women without access to reproductive health care.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/06/1418226/--Planned-Parenthood-Exposed-Examining-the-Horrific-Abortion-Practices?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29#

[boutons_deux]

Louisiana: Case in point for why defunding Planned Parenthood is a public health disaster (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/07/1417552/-Louisiana-Case-in-point-for-why-defunding-Planned-Parenthood-is-a-public-health-disaster)

Here's a look at how defunding Louisiana's two Planned Parenthood clinics would play out, via Jackie Calmes (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/us/politics/louisiana-lays-bare-difficulty-in-push-to-cut-planned-parenthood-funding.html?ref=politics).


Neither [Planned Parenthood] clinic in this state — like nearly half of all Planned Parenthood centers — performs (abortions). What the Louisiana Planned Parenthood clinics did do last year was administer nearly 20,000 tests for sexually transmitted infections, as well as providing gynecological exams, contraceptive care, cancer screenings and other wellness services for nearly 10,000 mostly low-income patients.“You can’t just cut Planned Parenthood off one day and expect everyone across the city to absorb the patients,” Dr. Taylor said. “There needs to be time to build the capacity.” [...]

Louisiana is among a number of states counted as medically underserved: It has a large poor and unhealthy population, with high rates of unintended pregnancies, a shortage of health professionals and too few who will accept Medicaid, as Planned Parenthood does.


So cutting off funds for two clinics will stop zero abortions, while depriving some 30,000 women of health services. If that's not the definition of fanaticism, I'm not sure what is. What's certain is it surely has nothing to do with any genuine concern for public health.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/07/1417552/-Louisiana-Case-in-point-for-why-defunding-Planned-Parenthood-is-a-public-health-disaster (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/07/1417552/-Louisiana-Case-in-point-for-why-defunding-Planned-Parenthood-is-a-public-health-disaster)

But the Repugs will defund PP anyway. Fucking the poor (women), fucking employees, fucking everybody but BigCorp and 1%.

[boutons_deux]

Conservatives prepare to make stand on Planned Parenthood

The make-or-break moment for House conservatives to defund Planned Parenthood is here.

Outraged by undercover videos on fetal tissue donation, (willfully duped by heavily edited, totally dishonest, slanderous videos) conservatives are pushing to cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood as part of legislation that would avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C. Confederate ), a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, spearheaded a letter (http://thehill.com/policy/finance/249694-18-house-republicans-pledge-to-oppose-spending-bill-with-planned-parenthood) to House GOP leaders shortly before lawmakers' August recess that stated he and 17 other Republicans would not vote for any spending bill that continues funding for Planned Parenthood.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/252807-conservatives-prepare-to-make-stand-on-planned-parenthood (http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/252807-conservatives-prepare-to-make-stand-on-planned-parenthood)

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Ted Cruz loses the whole Senate, but can still win a shutdown (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/10/1420090/-Ted-Cruz-loses-the-whole-Senate-but-can-still-win-a-nbsp-shutdown)

Sen. Ted Cruz's latest shutdown crusade over Planned Parenthood funding has alienated everyone in Washington, except his couple dozen minions in the House (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/10/1420057/-Rump-House-Speaker-Ted-Cruz-rides-again-in-Planned-Parenthood-shutdown), to the point that his Senate colleagues have given up any pretense of talking about him in polite terms. It's gotten so bad (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/cruz-defund-213467) that Cruz has even lost his trusty sidekick and lil' buddy, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and is having a very hard time finding anyone who will help him out in signing his pledge to defund Planned Parenthood.


"I don't want to use a failed tactic for political purposes knowing that it's not going to succeed," said Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.). "It will certainly get Sen. Cruz a lot of attention, which is obviously something that anybody running for president would want to get." […]Cruz is circulating a letter among senators hoping to get them to sign on to his vow to oppose any bill that funds Planned Parenthood this month, but his colleagues aren't biting.

In an interview, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said it’s "obvious" Cruz is only making this his latest cause to boost his visibility in a presidential campaign. And Ayotte, who withdrew her name from Lee's 2013 letter on Obamacare, said she will "absolutely not" sign onto Cruz’s latest missive. […]

Whereas in late August of 2013, Lee had secured pledges from 14 senators to defund Obamacare in the spending bill, Cruz is just getting started on his lobbying effort. But Lee, a frequent Cruz ally, hasn't yet signed on, and conservative Sens. Jim Risch of Idaho and Deb Fischer of Nebraska, who jumped into the Obamacare fight, are keeping their powder dry this time.


Even Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who no one will ever mistake for a Mensa candidate, knows that Cruz's ploy is poison. "Let's pass protection of life 20 weeks and after. That would be a reasonable response here," he tells Politico. "Develop a winning strategy rather than one that's guaranteed to lose."

Ayotte, Johnson, and a raft of other Republicans up for re-election don't want to have to run with the stench of shutdown, and are not buying Cruz's assurances that "[i]t is only in the twisted, inverted logic of the Washington Beltway that anyone other than Barack Obama would bear responsibility for that shutdown."

It's the whole of Congress vs. Ted Cruz and his couple dozen House followers. And the small minority of extremist Republicans who make up the presidential primary base. But guess who's going to get their way on September 30, all because Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are incapable of leading.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/10/1420090/-Ted-Cruz-loses-the-whole-Senate-but-can-still-win-a-nbsp-shutdown?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

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Stat check: No, Planned Parenthood does not get $500 million in federal funds


Planned Parenthood received $528.4 million in public funding last year

Every year, Planned Parenthood issues an annual report that breaks down where it gets funding. The most recent report shows that about 41 percent of the organization's budget comes from "government grants and reimbursements." You can see that in this chart.

https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ObtKg6xHd5IHVs_on5y0n47-Koo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4047932/planned%20parenthood%20budget.png(Planned Parenthood (http://issuu.com/actionfund/docs/annual_report_final_proof_12.16.14_/0))
If you translate that graph into dollar figures, as this table does, the half-billion figure turns up:
https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Q2fFGy6pVOlFtScYwhrfdgh7PQk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4047940/planned%20parenthood%20half%20billion.png(Planned Parenthood (http://issuu.com/actionfund/docs/annual_report_final_proof_12.16.14_/0))
That $528.4 billion figure covers all public funding that Planned Parenthood receives. That means it includes money from the federal government but also any revenue that comes in from state or local governments.

Planned Parenthood does not provide a breakdown of those different revenue streams — that is, its budgeting doesn't see federal and state dollars any differently. And when you think about how Planned Parenthood gets government money, that actually makes sense.

Much of Planned Parenthood's public revenue comes from seeing Medicaid patients. Medicaid covers 71 million Americans, and whenever one of them has a Planned Parenthood visit, the clinic gets a reimbursement check.

That's where the accounting gets a bit tricky: Medicaid is a program jointly funded by the federal government and the state. Here in the District of Columbia, the federal government pays for 70 percent of the program — and the district picks up the rest. The match percentage varies by state; you can see all the states here (http://kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/federal-matching-rate-and-multiplier/).

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/10/9304023/planned-parenthood-federal-funding

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GOP Holds ‘Farce’ Planned Parenthood Hearing

the committee heard from three long-time anti-choice advocates, including National Right to Life Committee general counsel James Bopp, and one pro-choice law professor, Priscilla Smith, director of Yale Law School’s Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice. Two of the witnesses called themselves “abortion survivors” and said they were born alive during very late abortion procedures, through methods that are no longer common practice.

Planned Parenthood executive vice president Dawn Laguens in a statement decried the nearly four-hour committee hearing as “political theater at its very worst.”

Several Democrats on the committee agreed with her, complaining that with a hearing title like “Planned Parenthood Exposed: Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider,” the Republican majority clearly wasn’t interested in an impartial investigation.

“The title alone is enough to call this hearing a farce,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) during the hearing. “It is wrong, and should be beneath this committee, to state its conclusion without a shred of evidence and before we receive even a word of testimony.”

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) called the hearing “the Benghazi of health-care hearings,” and said that the hearing was “not about the videos” but rather about whether women should have the right to choose.

Republicans on the committee did indeed seem more interested in discussing the morality of abortion, especially later abortion, than the particulars of whether and how Planned Parenthood broke any laws.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/09/10/gop-holds-farce-planned-parenthood-hearing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29

[ddjeffries]

I0Wwgh7kdKM

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Senate Preparing to Vote on Unconstitutional 20-Week Abortion Ban

Twenty-week abortion bans are considered unconstitutional because they violate Roe v. Wade’s protection of abortion rights up until the point of fetal viability, which is well after 20 weeks. Passing them at the state and federal level has been a primary strategy (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/14/3405651/real-strategy-behind-fetal-pain/) of the anti-choice movement, which hopes to use the constitutional conflict as a means of overturning Roe.

McConnell’s move could set up a vote on the ban somewhere between the final debate on the Iran deal and the end of the month, when the Senate will have to pass a spending bill to keep the government funded.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/09/11/senate-preparing-vote-unconstitutional-20-week-abortion-ban/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29

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Louisiana: Who needs Planned Parenthood when you have a dentist? (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/11/1420437/-Louisiana-Who-needs-Planned-Parenthood-when-you-have-a-dentist)

Gov. Bobby Jindal is fighting to defund Planned Parenthood in his state of Louisiana, and his administration doesn't much care about the facts in that fight. Seeking to prove that there would still be plenty of family planning services available for low-income Louisiana women, Jindal's administration gave a federal judge a list of 2,000 healthcare providers (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/louisiana-said-women-could-go-dentist-if-planned-parenthood-were-defunded) that could supposedly fill the gap. But, Molly Redden reports:


"It strikes me as extremely odd that you have a dermatologist, an audiologist, a dentist who are billing for family planning services," said the judge (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2394629-2015-09-02-pi-hearing-transcript.html), John deGravelles, who will determine in the next week whether it is legal for the state to end Planned Parenthood's Medicaid contracts.

"But that is what you're representing to the court?

You're telling me that they can provide family planning and related services?"His harsh questioning sent the state back to the drawing board.

On Tuesday, the state's attorneys acknowledged that the dentists and other specialists didn't belong on the list. They filed a pared-down version (http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2394627-34-1-2015-09-08-exs-a1-a2-a3-to-defs-amended-opp.html) that lists just 29 health care providers.


There's a small difference between 29 and 2,000, just like there's a small difference between a gynecologist and a dentist. Oh, and by the way, 29 providers on the list doesn't actually mean there are 29 places in Louisiana low-income women could go for family planning:


In Baton Rouge, the site of one of two Louisiana Planned Parenthood clinics, the state lists five alternate providers.

But only three of those offer contraception, according to the state's filing, and two of those have wait times ranging from two to seven weeks.

One of the Baton Rouge clinics the state suggested is not accepting any new patients for STI, breast cancer, or cervical cancer screenings.

Jindal's administration doesn't care about the facts and it doesn't care about health care for low-income women.

This is all about a partisan attack on Planned Parenthood—and one conveniently timed to help Bobby Jindal's presidential campaign.

(Which is beyond help, but apparently he hasn't clued into that yet.)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/11/1420437/-Louisiana-Who-needs-Planned-Parenthood-when-you-have-a-dentist?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29#

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FBI warns of increased attacks on women’s healthcare facilities

"It is likely criminal or suspicious incidents will continue to be directed against reproductive health care providers, their staff and facilities," an FBI Intelligence Assessment reads, according (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-warns-of-threat-to-reproductive-health-care-facilities/) to a CBS report Friday.

The finding comes after a July video from the pro-life Center for Medical Progress, which released secretly taped footage (http://www.ibtimes.com/planned-parenthood-sells-baby-body-parts-gop-candidates-reference-fetal-tissue-during-2101033) of Planned Parenthood officials discussing how they use tissues from aborted fetuses for medical research.

Since then, federal investigators have reported nine criminal or suspicious incidents at reproductive health centers across the country, which included cyberattacks, threats and arson. The FBI believes the incidents were “consistent with the actions of lone offenders using tactics of arsons and threats all of which are typical of the pro-life extremist movement,” sources told CBS.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/fbi-warns-of-increased-attacks-on-womens-healthcare-facilities/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

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Federal Court Rules Center for Medical Progress and BioMax Can’t Plead the Fifth

A federal judge today handed a decisive loss to the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) and BioMax, the two organizations embroiled in a lawsuit with the National Abortion Federation (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/31/national-abortion-federation-files-lawsuit-planned-parenthood-attack-group/) (NAF) stemming from their smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, along with David Daleiden, the head of CMP.

Judge William Orrick of the U.S. District Court of Northern California in San Francisco ruled that Center for Medical Progress and BioMax as corporate defendants cannot plead the Fifth Amendment in order to avoid responding to NAF’s discovery requests.

NAF filed a lawsuit in late July alleging civil conspiracy, racketeering, fraud, and breach of contract, among other civil and criminal allegations, stemming from the release of video footage deceptively edited to suggest that NAF members, including Planned Parenthood, are engaged in illegal trafficking of fetal baby parts.

NAF also sought a temporary restraining order blocking any further release of the attack videos.

Orrick issued the temporary restraining order, and ordered expedited discovery so that the National Abortion Federation could gather evidence to support its effort to obtain a preliminary injunction blocking CMP and Daleiden from releasing additional footage or other materials that NAF alleges the anti-choice front group fraudulently acquired. CMP and Daleiden usedfalse identification cards (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/28/exclusive-faces-fake-names-people-behind-planned-parenthood-attack-videos/) to infiltrate NAF’s annual meetings in 2014 and 2015, according to NAF.

All defendants in the case, including the corporate defendants, informed the court last month that they planned to plead the Fifth Amendment in response to all of NAF’s discovery requests in order to avoid making any self-incriminatory statements.

No court in the country has ever permitted a corporation to plead the Fifth Amendment.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/09/18/federal-court-rules-center-medical-progress-biomax-cant-plead-fifth/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29