20 Week Abortion Ban Is Not Extreme

From: The Weekly Standard

The American left loves Western European democracies for their cultural sensibilities and for their policies on everything from crime to health care. One policy area where you won’t hear American liberals cite the European example, though, is abortion.

The reason is simple: Abortion law is far more restrictive in Europe than in the United States. As the table below shows, 16 of 18 countries on the continent limit abortion to the first trimester of pregnancy (with certain exceptions in various countries). The banning of late-term abortions now being considered in the House of Representatives and some American states would seem only civilized to most Europeans.

Not to U.S. liberals, who call “extremism” the attempt by some in Congress to promote a bill banning abortions after 22 weeks. A similar bill in Texas is “a sweeping assault on women’s rights,” in the words of the Nation. Yet even these bills—in the unlikely event they became laws—would be among the most permissive in the Western world. 

Indeed, only Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands would have more permissive laws. Even anti-Catholic France bans abortion at 12 weeks, nearly 3 whole months before the gestational limit in the House bill. By international standards, Republican efforts to ban late abortions are anything but conservative—they are fringe left. 

Source: Phillip B. Levine, Sex and Consequences: Abortion, Public Policy, and the Economics of Fertility (Princeton University Press, 2007), 135-139.

Grassley: IRS Told Pro-Life Group to Swear It Would Not Protest Planned Parenthood

From: CNS

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that a pro-life group in Iowa was told by an IRS agent that its application would not be approved until the group’s board of directors swore it would not protest Planned Parenthood. “This comes directly from Iowa, one of my constituents attempted to establish 501(c)(3) charity called Coalition for Life of Iowa. She told my staff that an IRS agent told her ‘Your application’s ready to go. However, it will not be approved until you send a letter signed by your entire board under penalty of perjury saying that you will not protest at Planned Parenthood,’” Grassley said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

Grassley called it “outrageous” that the statement would even be “made by anybody in government that somehow you’ve got to compromise your First Amendment rights.”

In addition to the order that the group promise not to protest Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, Grassley’s constituent received a letter from the IRS with “several invasive questions, including the details of the group’s prayer meeting,” he said.

“Now stop to think about it – the government getting involved in somebody having a prayer meeting. It appears that the IRS essentially offered this group a quid pro quo – You can become a charity if you don’t protest in front of a Planned Parenthood, generally speaking so you don’t have to worry about 6103,” Grassley said.

Section 6103 of the Criminal Tax Manual refers to the confidentiality and disclosure of returns and return information.

He asked outgoing IRS Acting Commission Steven Miller if it was “appropriate even for an IRS employee to offer quid pro quo in the example like this.”

“The answer’s no,” Miller said. “We shouldn’t be trading,” he continued before Grassley interrupted him.

“Okay, let’s move on. That’s a good answer, because that’s the answer you ought to give, but how on earth could you let something like this happen under your leadership and do either of you feel any responsibility or remorse for treating American citizens this way?” Grassley asked.

“I think I started my public statement with an apology, sir, and I would continue that,” Miller said.
“I don’t know what happened in your given case, and as you well are aware, I can’t speak to it under the 6103 rules, but I do apologize for the treatment of folks, and look, there are two things that happened with these cases,” he continued.

“First was the selection, and the selection criteria was bad. Second was their treatment once they were in that group, and that too was bad, sir. It was. I don’t know whether this particular organization was inside or outside of that group, but the service that folks got was not the service that we should be providing anyone. There’s no question about that,” Miller concluded.

African American Organizations Silent on Killing "Ugly Black Babies" Comment by Abortion Doctor

Life News.com has a great article exposing the hypocrisy of Civil Rights organizations and their silence regarding statements made by abortion doctor Ashutosh Ron Virmani that he is ridding the world of "ugly black babies" and doing so prevents future shootings like the one in Colorado.As racist as it gets.

Pro-Life Bus FIRE BOMBED in Rockford

Gallup: Percentage of Pro-Abortion Americans Drops to Record Low

FRom: LifeNews.com

A new Gallup survey out today finds the percentage of Americans who identify them selves as supporting legalized abortion has dropped to a record low.


“The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as “pro-choice” is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009,” the polling firm noted. On the other hand, 51 percent of Americans call themselves pro-life, one percentage point away from the record high.

The percentage of Americans identifying themselves as pro-life has trended higher since 1995, when the partial-birth abortion debate began in earnest and ultrasound technology made it so pictures of unborn children were the first baby pictures most parents saw. Gallup has found the pro-life position significantly ahead on two occasions, once in May 2009 and again today and the number of pro-abortion Americans has steadily dropped.




Gallup says the decline in Americans’ self-identification as “pro-choice” is seen across the three U.S. political groups — with Republicans increasingly becoming pro-life.

“Since 2001, the majority of Republicans have consistently taken the pro-life position, but by a gradually increasing margin over “pro-choice.” That gap expanded further this year, with the percentage of Republicans identifying as pro-life increasing to 72% from 68% last May, and those identifying as pro-choice dropping to 22% from 28%,” Gallup noted.

Independent voters are also trending pro-life, with Gallup pointing out that the percentage of political independents identifying as pro-choice is 10 points lower today than in May 2011, while the percentage pro-life is up by six points. As a result, pro-lifers now outnumber pro-choicers among this important swing political group for only the second time since 2001, with the first occurring in 2009.

Even Democrats, who support abortion, are trending in the pro-life direction, according to the survey.
“Democrats’ views on abortion have changed the least over the past 12 years, with roughly 60% calling themselves pro-choice and about a third pro-life. Democrats’ identification as pro-choice was above this range in May 2011, but has returned to about 60% in the current poll,” Gallup noted.

The polling firm also found just 20 percent of Americans believe all abortions should be legal — the position of President Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood.

Gallup points out the polling sample has nothing to do with skewing results in a pro-life direction — providing more evidence that this shift in the pro-life direction is substantive.

“The shift in abortion views over the past year is not due to a change in the political composition of the samples. In the May 2-6, 2012, Values and Beliefs poll, 47% of respondents are Democrats or lean Democratic, while 41% are Republican or lean Republican. This is similar to the partisan composition of the May and July 2011 surveys, which showed a close division between pro-life and pro-choice Americans,” it said.

Gallup asked other questions and found Americans still consider abortion morally wrong. Half of Americans, 51%, consider abortion morally wrong and 38% say it is morally acceptable — nearly identical to the results in May 2011.


  The polling company says there is a “clear shift” to the pro-life side on abortion.

“Since 2009, Americans have been closely divided in their identification with the labels most commonly used by each side of the abortion debate, although twice in that time period, including today, the percentage identifying as pro-life has been significantly higher than the pro-choice percentage. This represents a clear shift from 2001 to 2008, when Gallup most often found pro-choice adherents in the plurality,” it says.
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 3-6, 2012 with a random sample of 1,024 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Planned Parenthood: Pre-Abortion Ultrasounds "Abhorrent"

From:LifeNews.com
Planned Parenthood has a response to the federal appeals court decision allowing Texas women a chance to see an ultrasound of their baby before an abortion. They call it “abhorrent.”Writing for the court, Chief Judge Edith Jones was frank about the other side’s failure “to demonstrate constitutional flaws with the law,” which requires women to have a sonogram 24 hours before an abortion. Judge Jones said the state has “legitimate interests in protecting the potential life within her.”

Denying her up-to-date medical information,” Jones wrote, “is more of an abuse to her ability to decide than providing the information.

”Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that the Fifth Circuit ruling “sets an abhorrent precedent” as other states prepared to consider similar laws to help women receive factual information about their baby and his or her development before making a life or death decision to have an abortion.
What Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council finds abhorrent is Richards’ reaction to the ruling.
“Her organization recognizes that the biggest weapon in the abortion debate is the ultrasound machine,” Perkins said. “For thousands of women, this window into the womb is the only persuasion they need to reconsider abortion. And, as Richards’s group has proved, pro-abortion activists will do everything in their power to stop mothers from recognizing the personhood of their unborn babies.”

“This is a country where Americans can’t even play paintball without signing a paper acknowledging the risks. How does it possibly make sense to let women undergo a major surgical procedure without giving them all the facts?” he said. “The media may be calling it a victory for pro-lifers, but in this case, women and their babies are the real winners. While Texans still have the right to “choose,” at least they’ll finally know what they’re choosing.”

Care Net President Melinda Delahoyde, the head of a network of pregnancy centers that provide women with abortion alternatives, agreed.

She said the court’s decision “affirms that women deserve full and accurate information about their pregnancy before they consent to an abortion. Once again, abortion providers tipped their hand by arguing that they alone should determine the level of information provided to a woman prior to an elective abortion.”

Delahoyde added: “Texas’s informed consent law ensures that abortion providers allow women the time and medical information necessary to make a truly informed pregnancy decision. When women have the opportunity to see their baby on ultrasound, learn about fetal development and understand the medical risks of abortion, they often find the courage to choose life. Care Net applauds the 5th Circuit for a decision that respects women and respects life.”

Dr. Sandy Christiansen, Medical Consultant for Care Net added: “Informed consent is one of the tenets of sound medical practice. Medical science has supplied the “window to the womb” in ultrasound. I can think of no better tool than ultrasound to provide a woman with critical knowledge as she makes a life changing decision.”