Abortion

Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen: Abortion is our ‘core mission’

Planned Parenthood President Dr. Leana Wen has affirmed the organization’s commitment to providing abortions after she claimed the news media misconstrued her earlier statements about expanding non-abortion services. Ms. Wen clarified Tuesday that Planned Parenthood’s “core mission” is to provide, protect and expand access to abortion. “We will never back down from that fight — it’s a fundamental human right and women’s lives are at stake,” she tweeted. Ms. Wen linked to a headline by BuzzFeed News, which she slammed as misleading. “I am always happy to do interviews, but these headlines completely misconstrue my vision for Planned Parenthood,” the physician wrote. The article, titled, “Planned Parenthood’s New President Wants To Focus On Nonabortion Health Care,” reported that Ms. Wen was kicking off a five-month listening tour of Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country in order to learn “how best to add or expand nonabortion services that are not normally associated with Planned Parenthood, like treatment for opioid addiction, diabetes management, and mental health counseling.” Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic campaign consultant, told BuzzFeed that the focus on non-abortion services signaled political “fatigue.” “If you publicly project that you’re no longer an advocate but a provider of medical services, the presumption is the bad guys will no longer beat you up because you’re no longer poking a stick in their eyes all the time,” Ms. Sheinkopf said. Ms. Wen pushed back on the report, declaring Tuesday that abortion is Planned Parenthood’s No. 1 priority.

Well, despite the fact that she’s a raving lunatic, we appreciate that Dr. Wen is at least being open and honest about what Planned Parenthood’s #1 priority is.  No more dancing..  But, her assertion that abortion is a “fundamental human right” is preposterous.  Just because she and her organization assert it, doesn’t make it so.  But, hey..  to lunatic liberals like her, facts aren’t important.  Typical…

Planned Parenthood forces cancellation of ‘Gosnell’ screening

Planned Parenthood convinced a hotel in Austin, Texas, to cancel a screening of a new movie about convicted abortionist Kermit Gosnell, according to the film’s producers. The movie, “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer,” which opens in theaters Oct. 12, was to be screened Saturday night in the Hyatt Hotel in the Texas capital at the same time Planned Parenthood hosts a $400 a plate gala dinner headlined by Cecille Richards, the organization’s former CEO. The movie’s producers, however, were told Monday by the hotel the screen was canceled for “security reasons.” The producers told WND they paid the deposit and signed the contract to reserve the space for the screening. “Everything that was required by the Hyatt was provided and completed as required,” a spokesman said. Producer Ann McElhinney said the movie screening “gave a real choice to the people of Austin.” “Over 250 had already registered to go and we were receiving dozens of new RSVPs every day,” she said. “But now thanks to the bullying of Planned Parenthood and the cowardice of the Hyatt they won’t get to see the Gosnell Movie and the truth about abortion.” Gosnell, who ran an abortion clinic in Philadelphia, was convicted in 2011 of multiple counts of first degree murder for late-term and after-birth abortions. A routine investigation led to the discovery of the criminal abortion operation, which Gosnell had been running for years. The producers say the movie exposes the lack of attention the case received at the time. Planned Parenthood’s Richards had been invited to the screening at the Hyatt, the producers said. Producer Phelim McAleer said the cancellation is “only a temporary victory for the forces of intolerance that have tried to bury this story all along the way.” He said the Hyatt screening was just a “sneak peek” before the movie is brought to 750 screens nationwide on Oct. 12. The film centers on Detective James “Woody” Wood, played by Dean Cain, and his partner Det. Stark (Alfonzo Rachel) who work an informant network to identify a doctor who had been selling prescription drugs illegally. As the case unfolded, Wood and District Attorney Sarah Jane Morris were confronted not only by the horrors of the case but also fierce resistance from government and personal politics. “Gosnell” is directed by Nick Searcy who starred in “The Shape of Water” and the critically acclaimed FX series “Justified.”

As many of you know, we try to avoid the abortion topic here at The Daily Buzz..  That said, its newsworthy just how Planned Parenthood (PP) bullies and intimidates the opposition.  Yes, the scheduling of this screening of Gosnell by the film’s producers at the same hotel that PP was having a convention was not an accident.  BUT, they applied for the use of the room for the screening of the film, paid the fees, and did everything appropriately.  So, that’s on that Hyatt for allowing competing entities to have their functions at the same time.  When the left bullies conservatives, it’s ok..and they get away with it.  Such is the case here with PP.  Typical…

Chelsea Clinton: Legalizing Abortion Created Trillions in Economic Growth

Chelsea Clinton recently made strong — if not substantiated — claims about the economic benefits of legalized abortion. The daughter of former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton recently spoke at Rise Up for Roe, an abortion rights campaign event created to advocate against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. During her speech, Clinton reportedly said: “It is not a disconnected fact … that American women entering the labor force from 1973 to 2009 added three and a half trillion dollars to our economy. … The net, new entrance of women — that is not disconnected from the fact that Roe became the law of the land in January of 1973. So, I think, whatever it is that people say they care about, I think that you can connect to this issue. Of course, I would hope that they would care about our equal rights and dignity to make our own choices — but, if that is not sufficiently persuasive, hopefully, come some of these other arguments that you’ve expressed so beautifully, will be.” There is no way to actually check Clinton’s economic rhetoric. But according to a 2008 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: ” Since 1976, the percentage of working women who were self-employed has trended up (from 4.4 percent in 1976 to 5.2 percent in 2008), while the percentage of men who were self-employed has edged down (from 8.4 percent to 7.6 percent). In 2008, 38 percent of all self-employed persons were women, compared with 27 percent in 1976.” Those numbers would not seem to support Clinton’s estimate.

Indeed!  Wow..  Didn’t realize just how spectacularly stupid Chelsea was..

Supreme Court rejects challenge to Arkansas’ medication abortion ban

The Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Arkansas’s ban on medication abortions Tuesday, leaving the case in the hands of lower courts who are debating whether blocking one specific type of abortion is a major burden on women’s abortion rights. Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma had challenged the 2015 law, saying it would halt operations at two of the state’s remaining three abortion clinics. A district court had agreed and blocked the law, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to a lower judge for more study on what the burden on women would actually be. The Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday not to take the case leaves the matter in the hands of those courts, but allows the state to start banning medication abortions for now. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge applauded the high court’s move. “Protecting the health and well-being of women and the unborn will always be a priority. We are a pro-life state and always will be as long as I am Attorney General,” she said in a statement. The law requires an abortion provider dispensing the abortion pill to have a contract with a physician that has admitting privileges to a nearby hospital in case of emergency complications. Medication abortions occur during the first trimester and have been used by Planned Parenthood clinics for more than a decade. The abortion occurs after a woman orally takes a mixture of two pills.

Trump says ‘historic’ rule change means taxpayers will no longer be forced to subsidize abortions

President Trump said his administration was making history Tuesday night with a new proposed rule banning health-care providers that offer abortion services from receiving federal funding, as he called on supporters to vote against Democratic senators who are blocking pro-life legislation. Speaking at the annual Susan B. Anthony List awards event in Washington, Mr. Trump said the new proposal under Title X is “historic” by reversing decades of federal policy. “For decades, American taxpayers have been wrongfully forced to subsidize the abortion industry through Title X federal funding,” Mr. Trump said to sustained applause. “Today, we have kept another promise. My administration has proposed a new rule to prohibit Title X funding from going to any clinic that performs abortions.” Under the new rule, health-care providers at federally funded clinics could not advise women considering an abortion on where to get one. The policy says money distributed under Title X of 1970 must be “physically and financially separate from programs in which abortion is provided or presented as a method of family planning, including programs that refer for abortions and programs that encourage, promote or advocate abortion as a method of family planning.” Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, hailed the move as long overdue. “Abortion is not healthcare,” she said. “For ten years strong Marist polling indicates that the majority of Americans do not want their taxpayer dollars subsidizing abortion companies. Meanwhile, not one dime of Title X funds will be cut, and the low-income women who those funds are intended to help, will receive authentic health care at federally qualified health centers which outnumber abortion centers 20:1.”

Here at The Daily Buzz we try to avoid the abortion issue.  That said, we applaud this move by the President.  If someone wants to get an abortion legally, that is their right.  But, they shouldn’t force me, or any other hard-working tax-payer, to pay for it.  For more on this article, click on the text above.

New York doctor pleads guilty in fatal abortion

A New York doctor who says he’s done 40,000 abortions is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the 2016 death of a woman who was six months pregnant and bled to death. The case in Queens Criminal Court marks one of the rare legal instances of criminal prosecution of a doctor over a medical error, but Assistant District Attorney Brad Leventhal said that Dr. Robert Rho’s mistakes went beyond civil malpractice. “It’s about greed and arrogance,” Leventhal told jurors last week during closing arguments in the month-long trial. He said 30-year-old Jaime Lee Morales “bled to death because this defendant did nothing.” Rather than call an ambulance, prosecutors said, Rho released Morales for her sister to drive her home in the Bronx, despite signs she was in grave condition and had collapsed in a bathroom of Rho’s clinic. Morales fell unconscious in the car. Medics responding to a 911 call took her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Rho’s attorney reached a plea deal with prosecutors Friday after jurors said they were deadlocked. It spares the 53-year-old physician from facing up to 15 years in prison on the original charge of second-degree manslaughter, equivalent to reckless homicide. Instead, Rho admitted he was negligent with Morales’ abortion, leaving her bleeding uncontrollably with a severed uterine aorta, ripped cervix and pierced uterine wall. The lesser charge comes with prison time of up to four years. But Rho’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, says he may end up with only months in prison when he is sentenced on June 26. Lichtman called it a “monumental victory.” Rho, who lives with his family in the Lake Success section of Great Neck, on Long Island, was arrested in October 2016, three months after Morales died. Morales, who lived in Buffalo, New York, had come to Rho’s clinic in the Flushing section of Queens with her sister, desperate to get an abortion, for which Rho charged $6,000, witnesses said. She had only learned a week earlier that she was pregnant. Profuse post-operative bleeding forced the doctor to perform another procedure that did not fix the damage, prosecutors said. Lichtman said the botched abortion was a tragedy but was not a crime. He said Morales never told Rho that she suffered from medical conditions that made her prone to more intense bleeding. After her death, the doctor closed his clinic and surrendered his medical license. Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion law firm and advocacy group based in Washington, issued a statement Friday saying that Morales’ family “received some measure of justice,” but “the truth is that the type of behavior described in the Rho trial — not following best medical practices, using untrained staff, failing to properly monitor vital signs, not maintaining a sterile environment, etc. — are all very common in abortion clinics across America.” Even before Morales’ abortion, the doctor had been investigated by state officials over concerns that he was performing procedures improperly and using assistants who lacked medical training, witnesses said at the trial. The last criminal prosecution in New York over a mishandled abortion was in 1995, when obstetrician David Benjamin was convicted of murder after a patient bled to death from a rip in her uterus during an abortion. Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell was convicted in 2013 of involuntary manslaughter after a patient got a fatal overdose of sedatives during an abortion. He also was convicted of murder for performing extremely late-term abortions, snipping the spines of infants born alive during the procedures.

Planned Parenthood Sues to Stop Health Inspections: ‘Unconstitutional’

Planned Parenthood has filed a federal lawsuit against Indiana over the state’s law that requires abortion clinics to be inspected annually for health and safety issues. “Once again Indiana politicians are barging into the exam room with irrational demands and intrusive requirements,” said Jane Henegar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana, which filed the suit on behalf of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky (PPINK), reports the Associated Press. In addition to a provision requiring annual health inspections of abortion clinics, the Indiana law also requires medical providers who treat women for complications due to abortion procedures to report patient information to the state. The provision “imposes unique and burdensome obligations,” Planned Parenthood argued in the lawsuit, claiming such complications “are both extremely rare for abortions and are more likely to occur after other medical procedures.” Planned Parenthood took in nearly $544 million in taxpayer funding last year, according to its latest annual report, and claims to be a “women’s healthcare” provider, though the number of many of its non-abortion services has been in decline. The abortion vendor also boosted its profits by $21 million – 27 percent – from the previous year. Christie Gillespie, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, said in a statement that the new law “is not about patient safety.” She said abortion “is already incredibly safe.” Gillespie added the law’s provisions are “yet another attempt by politicians to shame and stigmatize pregnant Hoosiers and spread the myth that abortion is dangerous.” However, in 2016, Americans United for Life (AUL) provided a 200-page report titled Unsafe: The Public Health Crisis in America’s Abortion Clinics Endangers Women. The report echoes the case of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell who, in 2013 was found guilty of murdering babies born alive during abortion and in the death of one of his patients. The AUL report also challenges the narrative put forward by abortion advocates that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Texas case of Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt prevents state legislatures from requiring health and safety standards in abortion clinics. “This report is the tip of the iceberg as too many state officials are turning a blind eye to this red-light district of medicine,” said AUL’s then-vice president of legal affairs Denise Burke and the author of the report. “The abortion industry willingly sacrifices women’s health and safety in their ‘back alley’ clinics, prioritizing mere access to abortion over women’s health and safety,” she said..

For more on this eye-opening piece by Dr. Susan Berry, click on the text above.