Nearly 50 new pro-life bills introduced since Trump’s election
The World News Service reports that almost 50 new pro-life bills have been introduced by state legislators since the November election. Last year, the nation’s lawmakers passed 60 new pro-life bills and leaders expect more new laws this year. National Right to Life’s Ingrid Duran explains, “With the election of a pro-life president, with all of the gains that we made across the different states with last year’s election, we are very optimistic in passing laws that protect unborn babies and their moms.”
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed a bill in late January protecting unborn babies from brutal dismemberment abortions. The bill prohibits D & E abortions, a common, barbaric second-trimester procedure in which the unborn child is torn apart in the womb and pulled out in pieces. The Arkansas Department of Health reported that, in 2015, 683 of the 3,771 abortions performed were dismemberment abortions. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has said it will challenge the law.
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed two new pro-life bills in early February. One of the laws bans abortions after 20 weeks, when strong scientific evidence indicates that unborn babies can feel pain. The ACLU has challenged the bill. The second law requires medical staff to perform an ultrasound before the abortion and allow the woman to see it if she chooses. Staff will also describe the unborn child, its size, organs, and other features to the mother and will all allow her to hear her baby’s heartbeat.
In early March, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead signed the first pro-life legislation in Wyoming in 28 years. The new law requires that woman be offered a chance to see an ultrasound and hear the heartbeat of her unborn child before having an abortion. This is important because 78 percent of abortion-minded women choose life after seeing an ultrasound. A second bill bans the use of aborted babies’ body parts for research.
In mid-March, a bill that would ban abortions in Ohio after 20 weeks went into effect. With Governor John Kasich’s signature on the Pain-Capable bill, Ohio joins fifteen other states in prohibiting late-term abortions on unborn babies who can feel pain. The Polling Company found that, after being informed scientific evidence shows unborn babies are capable of feeling pain by 20 weeks, 60 percent support the protective laws and 30 percent oppose them.
[www.lifenews.com/2017/01/03/nearly-50-new-pro-life-laws-have-been-introduced-since-president-trumps-election; www.lifenews.com/2017/01/27/arkansas-gov-asa-hutchinson-signs-bill-to-ban-dismemberment-abortions-tearing-off-babies-limbs; www.lifenews.com/2017/02/09/kentucky-governor-signs-pro-life-bill-banning-abortions-after-20-weeks; www.lifenews.com/2017/03/10/wyoming-gov-signs-bill-allowing-women-to-see-ultrasound-before-abortion-first-pro-life-law-in-28-years; www.lifenews.com/2017/03/14/ohio-bans-late-term-abortions-after-20-weeks-on-unborn-babies-who-feel-excruciating-pain]
Washington D.C. legalizes assisted suicide
Washington D.C. recently became the sixth place in the U.S. to legalize assisted suicide. The law, modeled after Oregon’s law, went into effect in mid-February following an unsuccessful attempt in the U.S. Congress to block the measure. Other states allowing the practice include Washington State, Vermont, California, and Colorado. The practice has some legal protection in Montana. The new law passed despite widespread opposition from African Americans, people with disabilities, medical professionals, pro-lifers, and religious groups.
Opponents say the law opens the door for abuse of elderly and those with disabilities. Attorney Margaret Dore, president of Choice is an Illusion, says the law allows a patient’s heirs (who could benefit from their death) to participate in requesting the lethal drugs. The law does not require a doctor or witnesses to be present when the patient takes the drugs.
African-American activist Leona Redmond insists that politicians will continue to make healthcare cost cuts a higher priority than healthcare for the poor and elderly. No DC Suicide, a coalition of groups opposed to the legislation, said the new law does not require patients to have mental health screenings for depression, though it is a key factor in suicide cases.[www.lifenews.com/2017/02/20/Washington-d-c-becomes-6th-place-in-the-u-s-to-legalize-assisted-suicide]
Chemical (RU486) abortion numbers rising
The Centers for Disease Control and the Guttmacher Institute have reported U.S. abortion numbers dropping for years. In 2014, the number (926,190) dropped to below one million for the first time since 1974.
National Right to Life’s Randall O’Bannon, Ph.D., says the drop in total abortion numbers “makes it clear that this is no statistical glitch or aberration and not simply the response to some new medical policy or some recent legislative or judicial happening.” O’Bannon maintains, “Fewer people believe abortion is simply a morally neutral surgical procedure to remove ‘tissue.’ Old talking points about abortion as an ‘answer’ for unwed pregnancy, poverty, or collapsing relationships are no longer convincing.”
Unfortunately, the reports also show a concerning trend. Chemical abortion numbers are dramatically rising. There were 272,400 chemical abortions performed in 2014, about 29.4 percent of the total number of abortions, an increase of 13.8 percent in just three years. Guttmacher says “Twenty-three percent of all non-hospital facilities offered only early medication [chemical] abortions.” This toxic drug abortion method can be more dangerous than surgical abortion, causing hemorrhaging, blood loss requiring transfusions, serious infection, and death.
[www.lifenews.com/2017/01/19/272000-babies-were-killed-with-the-abortion-pill-that-slowly-starves-a-baby-to-death]
Botched abortion emergencies continue
In recent years, three American women have died from abortion. Erica Goode, 21, died from a massive infection in 2007 at Planned Parenthood’s Riverside, California abortion facility. In 2012, 23-year-old Tanya Reaves died from a uterine perforation at a Planned Parenthood facility in Chicago, Illinois. Reeves bled internally for five hours before being transported to a hospital. Cree Erwin-Sheppard, 24, died from abortion complications following a uterine perforation at a Kalamazoo, Michigan Planned Parenthood facility.
The nation’s most dangerous abortion facility, located in St. Louis, transported its 64th woman by ambulance to a hospital on March 11, 2017. Five Statement of Deficiency Reports show that Missouri state inspectors have cited the Planned Parenthood facility for 39 classes of violations involving 210 incidents, most of which concerned failure to provide a safe and sanitary environment, including failure to sterilize surgical instruments used on patients.
On January 18, at Planned Parenthood’s flagship Margaret Sanger Center abortion facility in New York City, a patient, lying on her side and in great pain, was wheeled to an ambulance, passing under a large pink banner which ironically read “Healthcare happens.” This was the fifth documented medical emergency at the Margaret Sanger Center facility. Operation Rescue President Troy Newman observes, “Healthcare really doesn’t happen at Planned Parenthood facilities. There’s no way anyone can seriously consider dismembering an innocent child in the womb to be ‘healthcare.’”
Abortionist Donald C. Willis botched four abortions in the span of five weeks at an abortion facility in Bakersfield, California. The incidents took place at the FPA Women’s Health abortion facility on January 10, February 4 (two incidents), and February 18. Willis, whose history of mental illness led to a suicide attempt and psychiatric treatment, had voluntarily surrendered his Alaska medical license and had his Oregon medical license permanently restricted. However, he continues to practice in California with no restriction.
On February 7, on the one-year anniversary of previous patient who died from complications from a late-term, 33-week abortion, abortionist LeRoy Carhart sent another patient to the hospital. This is the tenth time Carhart has summoned an ambulance to transport an abortion patient from Germantown Reproductive Health Services since December 2010. The Maryland Board of Physicians refuses to investigate Carhart’s patient care issues unless they have a name and contact information of an injured patient.
On March 3, ambulances were called to the abortion facility Westside Health Center in Santa Cruz, California for the 22nd time since January 2016.
[www.lifenews.com/2017/01/24/planned-parenthood-injures-woman-in-botched-abortion-put-in-ambulance-under-healthcare-happens-sign; www.lifenews.com/2017/02/20/abortion-clinic-rushes-woman-to-hospital-after-botching-4th-abortion-in-five-weeks; www.lifenews.com/2017/02/08/on-anniversary-of-killing-woman-in-33-week-abortion-leroy-carhart-sends-another-woman-to-hospital; www.lifenews.com/2017/03/13/one-planned-parenthood-clinic-has-injured-women-in-64-botched-abortions-has-39-health-violations]
Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe”) dies
Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” in the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, died in Katy, Texas at age 69. McCorvey was a 21-year-old seeking a divorce when she became pregnant. Attorney Sarah Weddington used McCorvey’s case and false claim of rape as a means of overturning Texas’ abortion law. McCorvey didn’t want an abortion and put her daughter up for adoption. The case went to the Supreme Court, which chose to invalidate every state law in the nation.
McCorvey, who became pro-life, admitted her rape story was a lie, as was virtually every “fact” Weddington used to build her case. McCorvey considered the court case the biggest mistake of her life, saying, “I am dedicated to spending rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name.” McCorvey and Sandra Cano, the “Doe” in the Doe v. Bolton companion case, both became unabashedly pro-life and have sworn that their cases were built on lies. Those two cases, decided on the same day, legalized abortion for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy.
www.lifenews.com/2017/02/18/norma-mccorvey-jane-roe-of-roe-v-wade-passes-away-she-never-had-an-abortion-and-became-pro-life]
