After an intense debate for and against the proposal, the New York state Legislature passed a bill Tuesday that makes it legal for doctors and other health care professionals, such as midwives and physician assistants, to perform abortions up until birth for any reason in the state.
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| Via Legal Insurrection |
With its natural wood floors and plush upholstery, Carafem aims to feel more like a spa than a medical clinic. But the slick ads set to go up in Metro stations across the Washington region leave nothing to doubt: “Abortion. Yeah, we do that.”
The Maryland clinic, opening this week in Montgomery County’s tony Friendship Heights area, specializes in the abortion pill. The advertising reflects its unabashed approach — and a new push to de-stigmatize the nation’s most controversial medical procedure by talking about it openly and unapologetically.
[...] “It was important for us to try to present an upgraded, almost spa-like feel,” said Melissa S. Grant, vice president of health services for the clinic.
If the project is successful, Purdy says, he hopes to expand his model to other states.
“It’s fresh, it’s modern, it’s clean, it’s caring,” he said. “That’s the brand we’re trying to create.”
A U.S. appeals court ruled Friday that the Obama administration can use federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, a decision that overturns a judge's order last year and hands the White House a major victory.
In a 2-1 decision, the court said that opponents of taxpayer-funded stem cell research are not likely to succeed in a lawsuit to stop it.
The ruling reversed an opinion last August by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who said the research likely violates the law against federal funding of embryo destruction.
The 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so private money has been used to cull batches of the cells. Those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and the Obama administration issued rules permitting taxpayer dollars to be used in work on them.
US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens had already telegraphed his intention to retire while Obama is president, so it was only a matter of when.
The WaPo reports today that he has now informed the president that he will retire at the end of the Court’s current term. Why now? On the surface, the timing seems pretty routine:
Stevens said he was announcing now so that the president would have time to make a nomination and the Senate to confirm in time for the start of the court's new term next October.
But why this year? Stevens has been quite clear that he didn’t want a Republican to name his successor, so in theory his retirement could have, for example, waited until next year.
Then again, the Obama White House senses an ill wind blowing among the electorate, a wind that might sweep some or all of the Democrat majority out of the Senate in November.
Even if the Dems retain their majority, the loss of just a few seats would force Obama to choose a nominee that is far less radical than he would like. Hence, given the uncertainties of November, there is no better time than now for Obama to get a justice more to his liking.
Is there any serious doubt that Stevens is deferring to the political calculations of the administration?
Yes, yes, I know, it happens with Republican presidents too.
The notion of an independent judiciary is long dead – yet another symptom of the twilight years of the American republic.
Yesterday, the Senate began the process of considering amendments to Senator Harry Reid's pro-abortion health care legislation.
The first amendment offered was Mikulski Amendment No. 2791, sponsored by pro-abortion Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, dealing with federally mandated coverage of "preventive care."
The amendment would essentially define abortion as preventative care and could result in mandates to private insurance plans that they define abortion as such and provide coverage of it.
Because of that, the National Right to Life Committee issued a letter to members of the Senate urging them to strongly oppose the Mikulski amendment.
"If Congress were to grant any Executive Branch entity sweeping authority to define services that private health plans must cover, merely by declaring a given service to constitute 'preventive care' then that authority could be employed in the future to require all health plans to cover abortions," NRLC explains.
"Therefore, NRLC opposes both the Mikulski Amendment No.2791, and the underlying language of Section 1001, unless additional language is added to explicitly exclude abortion from the universe of services that might be mandated as 'preventive care,'" the letter continues.
Liberal religious groups joined secular pro-choice organizations Monday to mourn as a martyr one of the country's most famous providers of late-term abortions.Yes, that was our good friend Katherine Ragsdale, who earned herself a brief moment of infamy when various websites discovered the text of one of her sermons where she referred to abortion as "a blessing".
A nationwide network of candlelight vigils and services took place from Lafayette Park in the District to Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Ore., and from Union Square in New York to Millennium Plaza in Yakima, Wash.
Hundreds of people were expected to gather at each locale to mourn Sunday's fatal shooting of Dr. George Tiller on the grounds of his Lutheran church in Wichita, Kan. He was one of a handful of doctors in the country who did abortions after the sixth month of pregnancy.
St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Boston held an evening memorial service where the Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, president of Episcopal Divinity School in nearby Cambridge, was one of several scheduled speakers.
"This is about the loss of a man who was a saint and a martyr," she said in an interview before the service. "He was a prayerful man who put his life at risk to protect others and died for it. People are in shock, outrage and mourning. They need a place to go."
Zachary Roth of TPM Muckraker writes:Given that this event (which I still contend was an atrocity) is turning out to be tailor-made to advance the Obama administration's agenda, perhaps we can suggest our own conspiracy theory by taking a cue from "Kyle" of People for the American Way: The timing of this murder was convenient. Too convenient.
But in the wake of the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion extremist -- who had also been said by the FBI during the 1990s to have been a member of the radical Freemen group -- the report is looking a little more reasonable.Predictably, Roth concludes, "[p]erhaps that report is due for a reassessment."
Hiding behind a pen name, "Kyle" of People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch, writes "it seems as if the report - far from being an offensive attack on Christians and anti-choice activists - was remarkably timely and accurate."
Dr. George Tiller, whose Kansas women's clinic was the epicenter of the state's battles over abortion for nearly two decades, was shot and killed at his church Sunday morning, his family said.He was a lightning-rod for pro-life protests because he unapologetically championed the right to kill viable pre-born babies -- including through the use of the barbaric and medically unnecessary partial-birth abortion procedure.
Tiller, 67, was one of the few U.S. physicians who still performed late-term abortions. He survived a 1993 shooting outside his Wichita clinic.
He was fatally shot shortly after 10 a.m. Sunday at Reformation Lutheran Church, Wichita police said.
Tiller "dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality heath care despite frequent threats and violence," his family said in a written statement.Tiller's devoted his professional life in the service of a great evil, and make no mistake -- he will answer to God for it. BUT -- God has reserved vengeance (i.e. justice) for Himself, and I seriously doubt that He delegated this prerogative to some middle-aged guy from Kansas.
"We ask that he be remembered as a good husband, father and grandfather and a dedicated servant on behalf of the rights of women everywhere," the family said.
