FOCA - Abortion On Demand? Tell your congress NO!

One of the first battles that Obama will fight will be one for full access to abortion – removing obstacles like parental consent and late term prohibitions. Barack Obama’s own words affirm this commitment. From his his Statement on 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Decision: "Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.”

In an op-ed piece published in Boulder Weekly, Jill Hopke laments the horrible state we’ve come to in America, writing “In 2003, Bush signed into law a federal ban on late term abortions, called the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act…This law does not include any exceptions for medically necessary abortions…”

On this topic, the former president of Planned Parenthood, Alan Guttmacher, weighs in: "Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal disease such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save the life of the mother.i"

In other words, medical necessity is rarely a factor in making a decision about whether or not to abort a child.

Hopke, in an attempt to undermine the partial birth ban, goes on to say “partial-birth abortion is not a medical term used by the American Medical Association..” Why is this important? Semantics matter when you’re talking about killing children. That’s why they’re referred to as “fetuses” instead of babies. Hopke would rather refer to partial birth abortion as a “professionally accepted procedure such as intact dilation and extraction.” Sounds better, doesn’t it? What does it involve?

From Wikipedia, here’s a synopsis: “The fetus is turned to a breech position, if necessary, and the doctor pulls one or both legs out of the birth canal, causing what is referred to by some people as the 'partial birth' of the fetus. The doctor subsequently extracts the rest of the fetus, usually without the aid of forceps, leaving only the head still inside the birth canal. An incision is made at the base of the skull, scissors are inserted into the incision and opened to widen the opening,[9] and then a suction catheter is inserted into the opening. The brain is suctioned out, which causes the skull to collapse and allows the fetus to pass more easily through the birth canal. ii” Let’s put that in layman’s terms: The doctor pulls the baby part way out, cuts open the skull, shoves in scissors, then sucks the brain out before pulling the baby out the rest of the way. When you hear in plain language what is involved you can see why semantics matter to pro-abortion activists.

Let me ask another question – if the baby can be delivered that far, why can’t it be delivered all the way? Certainly, if there’s a life threatening condition, with the child hasving reached a viable stage of development he or she can be delivered via c-section to end the pregnancy without ending a life. As said on the American Life League site: “Essentially, both mother and child should be treated as patients. A doctor should try to protect both. iii”

The answer is that abortion is not about reproductive rights or reproductive “justice” as Obama calls it; it’s actually about convenience. As Obama says himself: "Look, I've got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

That says it better than I ever could. Abortion is about avoiding the consequences of one’s actions. Whether it’s going to negatively impact a career, a college education, or anger parents of a young or unwed girl, an unexpected child is hugely inconvenient. The liberal first line of defense is abortion – it’s quick, easy and until later term abortion was outlawed, easy to access. They never talk about other options like adoption unless they’re pushed.

This year, congress is going to try to reopen the partial birth door with the Freedom Of Choice act. Introduced by Barbara Boxer, the stated purpose is “To protect, consistent with Roe v. Wade, a woman's freedom to choose to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy, and for other purposes. iv” The bill is thick with scary language like the following: “Prior to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, an estimated 1,200,000 women each year were forced to resort to illegal abortions, despite the risk of unsanitary conditions, incompetent treatment, infection, hemorrhage, disfiguration, and death. Before Roe, it is estimated that thousands of women died annually in the United States as a result of illegal abortions.”

This is not true in the least. Bernard Nathanson was one of the founding members of NARAL, and in his “confession of an ex-abortionist v” he says: “This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000.”

The FOCA also quotes the World Health Organization as saying that 600,000 pregnancy deaths occur world-wide every year, 80,000 of them from illegal abortions. The intent is to make us think that if this act isn’t passed, those numbers could be applied here in the US. Again, this is a feint to mislead anyone who would actually take the time to read the bill.

However, also according to WHOvi , 97% of these deaths occur in developing countries in Africa and Asia where hospitals lack proper sanitation, health care in general is poor and access to medical facilities problematic. The most common complications leading to death both in a pregnancy and an abortion in the developing world include hemorrhage, sepsis, peritonitis, and trauma to the cervix, vagina, uterus, and abdominal organs. WHO also states that the main barriers to proper care include:

• frequent shortages or lack of medications, essential supplies and equipment;
• inadequate blood transfusion services;
• inefficient laboratory support services;
• inadequate staffing, shortage of appropriately trained personnel and lack of staff supervision;
• shortage of operating theatres for obstetric emergencies, resulting in delays in surgical interventions;
• weak policy on delegation of authority for the management of obstetric emergencies, and
• mismanagement of obstetric complications as a result of staff incompetence, negligence or poor attitude.
  

Timely access to appropriate obstetric emergency care (EOC) could avert 75% of these deaths, according to the paper, which enumerates the delays on the pathway to appropriate care in the region.vii Barbara Boxer and Barack Obama would have people believe that the simple act of increasing the availability of abortion will somehow fix these numbers.

The truth is that the worldwide deaths related to pregnancy (roughly 10% are from “unsafe” abortion – WHO does not use the term “illegal”) have more to do with the quality of medical care in the developing world. In America both the quality of care and the access to it are among the best in the world – it is only the convenience of abortion on demand that liberals feel is lacking. The fact that they must dress up their argument with bogus statistics and muddy the waters with global, third-world data should tell people this piece of legislation should be sent to the shredder.


i http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10216
ii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intact_dilation_and_extraction
iii http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10216
iv http://www.nrlc.org/FOCA/FOCA2007S1173.html
v http://www.aboutabortions.com/Confess.html
vi http://www.who.int/whr/2005/overview/en/index4.html
vii http://www.afro.who.int/press/2003/regionalcommittee/pr20030904.html


POST SCRIPT:

I got this from the "against the so-called freedom of choice act" group on facebook.

What can you do to stop FOCA?
1. Sign the petition: http://www.fightfoca.com
2. Take part in the peaceful protests for life in January 2009 - more info here http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98866290561&ref=ts
3. Leave a comment on President-elect Obama's website about FOCA: http://change.gov/open_government/entry/advancing_reproductive_rights_and_health_in_a_new_administration1/. This site also shows an agendum for abortion issues in his administration.
4. Find your Senators and Representatives here http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ and tell them you don't support FOCA. (You will need to supply a zipcode, click the congressman's name, and then click the "contact" tab.)

Liberals Are Bullies, Too

A bully is someone who picks fights with someone weaker than he is; someone who can't defend himself or fight back. And so I contend that liberals, special interests and progressives are bullies.

In China, a man who had gone to his local government office to complain that his local school wasn't being funded appropriately was severely beaten for his efforts. When he complained to a larger regional government office, he got a larger response. To remedy the situation the school was burned down and his tongue was cut out. In Iraq (while Saddam was still in power) a man who publicly spoke out against Saddam was captured, his tongue cut out, and then he was put in the back of a pickup truck and paraded around town so others could see what happens to those who speak out. There are numerous other examples, but take these as evidence that around the world "free speech" is relatively unknown, which brings me back to the bullies here at home.

In the US of A people have the right to say just about anything they want. Jeremiah Wright can call the country the US of KKKA and he's within his right to do so. Yes, slavery was bad, but the number of slaves in the US accounted for about 1% of slavery worldwide, and slavery is still practiced in places around the world. I'm not trying to minimize slavery as an evil practice, but I never owned any slaves, my ancestors never owned any slaves, and further, no one alive today owned any slaves. Blacks are on equal footing and have more rights here than anywhere else in the world. It was not always thus, and it took a long time to get here, but we're here. People like Clarence Thomas will tell you the only thing keeping a black man down is that man himself (for which he is denigrated by people on the left - the only time it seems OK to attack a black man is if he is conservative politically).* But, Wright is entitled to his opinions, and even if people feel he's misguided and, to use a favorite phrase of the Obama campaign, manufacturing controversies, that is his right as an American.

People can (and do) say numerous vile and untrue things about George W Bush. People can put bumper stickers on their cars decrying his perceived stupidity without fear of their tongues being removed.** Even if what people are saying is not true, it's their opinion and they're free to express it. That is their right as Americans.

And this is why they're bullies. They make whatever hurtful allegations they want about whatever cause they want, absent any facts or intelligent debate, and because it's their right to do so nothing can be done to stop them. They pick fights against which there's no defense.

Witness the text of billboards popping up around the country (Washington, DC, Wisiconsin, Illinois and Colorado right now) [emphasis is mine]: "At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

This makes shopping for the atheist on your list pretty easy. They get...no presents. Not even a lump of coal.

In seriousness, the allegation is that if you are religious, you are superstitious have a hard heart and an enslaved mind - and by proxy you enslave others and harden their hearts. So goes the contention - and if you disagree, you can do nothing about it, because it's their right as Americans to pay for and post these billboards.

But let's reverse the situation...if you posted a billboard that said "Atheism is an ignorant non-believing practice that has no value and nothing to offer more intelligent society" do you think there would be an uproar? Do you think the ACLU would step up to their defense? You bet they would. How dare anyone put such hateful words up for public display? Hate speech! That's the cheese! Hate speech is not protected by the 1st amendment, so let's get this torn down!

And that's the bullies mantra. If they're fighting against (insert preferred noun here: republican president, republican anything, organized religion, corporate entity, heterosexualism, globalization, etc) it is a just an noble cause. If the target of their ire fights back, it's hate speech. I've written on other posts that it's all one way with the far left. Free speech as long as it's their speech; tolerance for others as long as they don't have to practice tolerance. They rail and complain against the establishment because they can get away with it. The very country they so often condemn is the same country that permits them to condemn it - but that irony is lost on them. The rules of engagement that they hide behind do not apply to them - and that is the ploy of the bully.

*I'm sure that these opinions could be viewed as controversial. If you disagree or think I am oversimplifying the issue, I invite you to leave a comment and we can debate the issue.
** My personal favorite is "When Clinton lied, no one died" This should serve a confirmation that liberals and progressives, with their moral relativism, can't be trusted. One could paraphrase this statement to read "I believe it's OK to do whatever you want, including lie under oath, provided no one directly dies as a result."

Lies, Hypocrisy and the Liberal Way

The tenets of liberal philosophy seems to be geared around, if not outright lies, then mere deception, and hypocrisy. In a Townhall.com post I gave a view into the liberal playbook: Deceive, Defame, Decry, Deny. Add to that list "Do as I say, not as I do."

Currently, the media is (still) fawning over Obama, comparing him to Lincoln for meeting with rivals and reaching across divides to build his cabinet. In Ann Coulter's recent column she says: "I don't recall the media swooning when President George W. Bush reached out to rivals, such as Sen. Teddy Kennedy, who was asked to co-write Bush's education bill. In fact, the way I remember it, Bush is liberals' most hated president ever (only because they can't remember George Washington or they'd hate him, too)." While this is a good example of the selective liberal lens being applied, there are others as well.

• I recently saw a "pin" on Facebook that said "People who compare Obama to Hitler are douchebags." Now, aside from offending the douchebag lobby, haven't liberals been comparing Bush to Hitler for, say, 8 years. When the Nazis were rising to power they used strongarm tactics to silence the media and get their propaganda published. It was Obama's campaign, not Bush's or McCain's, who censured a Florida radio station for violating the unwritten rule that the media shall not ask tough questions of Obama's policies. It's the liberal media who launched full scale investigations, some illegal, into the background of Joe "the plumber" who merely asked a question about an Obama policy that he felt was going to affect him greatly (and Obama sought him out, not the other way around!). One lunatic on a San Francisco radio station even said he wanted Joe killed. It is Obama who wants a national civilian security force just as well trained and well funded as the military, but has yet to explain what exactly they will do. Hitler formed a civilian defense force, well funded and trained, to skirt the Versailles treaty that banned Germany from having a military. Look how that turned out. The point here is that liberals are hypocrites. It's OK to compare republicans to Hitler, but to dare to do so to the anointed liberal-in-chief makes one a "douchebag." Do as I say, not as I do.
• Tolerance is a central tenet of liberal theology...as long as it's the conservatives who have to be tolerant. If you're liberal, it's OK to beat an elderly woman who supported prop 8 in California and form a wall so media and help can't get to her. It's OK to vandalize churches, force people from their jobs and disrupt church services to voice dissent about prop 8. Gay marriage has been voted down in 30 states (31 if you count California voting it down twice) but the vocal minority can't accept the results. One dissenting opinion I read on a blog said the violence that is now spreading is the natural result that comes from "living under the jackboot of oppression." (Note the Nazi reference!). Gays can do pretty much anything they want in this country except get married. There are civil unions and legal trusts that give them all the same rights as a married couple, with the exceptions of getting spousal benefits from an employer. This, while inconvenient, is not oppression. The millions of women in Africa who undergo forced genital mutilation are oppressed. Gay people who cannot marry are inconvenienced. There IS a difference, and it does not warrant violence. Prop 8 passed by a margin of 52% to 48%. This is roughly the same margin that put Obama in office, so I guess it's OK for the anti Obama crowd to go wilding until that decision is overturned? Good to know.
• Abortion activists oppose any law that requires ANY restriction on abortion, including common sense rules like parental notification for minors seeking abortion or a waiting period before the abortion is performed. One can't get a tattoo without parental consent unless over age 18. One cannot buy a handgun unless there's a waiting period and a significant background check. There is, by some calculations a murder commit ed every 22 minutes in America. If you do the math (((24 hours *60 minutes)*365 days)/22 minutes) you get 23,891 murders per year. Not all of those murders are commit ed with handguns. There are approximately 1,200,000 abortions performed every year. Which kills more people, abortion or hand guns? Which one is more tightly regulated?
• Free speech is another thorn in the side of the liberal. Being debated today is the "fairness doctrine." (with liberals, anything that restricts freedoms will be labeled "fair"). As defined in Wikipedia, the Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. The FCC abolished it in 1987. Today, conservative talk radio dominates the airwaves, and Fox News trounces the competition daily, and this is a concern for the liberals (who own print "journalism" almost exclusively and own every other demographic on cable and network TV, aside from FNC). The liberals have Air America, which is a commercial failure. This is the free market at work. Nancy Pelosi's book was outsold by Tori Spelling and Ernest Borgnine's autobiographies. Not subject to the fairness doctrine, but again, the free market at work. The reason conservative talk radio and FNC dominate is because that's what the people WANT to listen to. Force stations to put other formats on the air and people will change the station. The solution is to reinstate the so called "fairness doctrine." If you can't beat 'em, shut 'em up. To the liberal, that's what free speech is all about. Where's the ACLU on this one, defending private broadcasters from the tyranny of government?
  

I can list several other examples but I need to get to work. Suffice it say that when it comes to free speech, free elections, and moral issues, liberals are all about doing the right thing - as long as the right thing is what they agree with. Otherwise, anything goes. For the conservatives this behavior is "hate speech" or "fascism" or "using the jackboot"; for liberals, it's called tolerance.

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I voted against Obama. He is now the most thoroughly unqualified person to be president, getting elected on policies that have proven to be failures under Jimmy Carter, that have been proven wrong by the scientific community and that by his own admission will bankrupt entire industries and not just make us pay more in taxes, but will cost us hundreds of dollars more per year for our energy. He's also going to turn the abortion spigot on full blast so there will be fewer people in 20 years to pay for his increased entitlements so in a generation America will be as deep in the hole as France is today.

My vote wasn't one of party loyalty; rather it was based on beliefs. Before the election I took a quiz which, upon completion, compared my answers to the policies of Obama. My beliefs differed from Obama's on 48 of 48 issues. Sadly, according the Zogby and USA today polls from which the quiz questions were compiled, the majority of Americans differed with him on 48 of 48 issues as well, but we still elected him. It makes no sense. Some questions were broken out by income bracket, and even the low income respondents differed with him on 46 of 48, with the only 2 agreements being on raising top marginal tax rates and increasing entitlements. I just don't know what happened.

Three days after the election most pundits are saying that Obama, like Clinton, will go more centrist than left. So far his cabinet picks don't show much in the way of change or inspiring hope, but they are pretty consistent with his past (Chicago politics of reciprocity all the way). What's funny is the things I point out below make conservatives gasp and make liberals clap. I hate to say it, but I think Pat Buchanan was right - he will either make good on his many promises and be at odds with the majority of America (the rejection of gay marriage in California of all places - twice - serves as proof that America IS center-right) or he will move to the center and be at odds with his party. Either way there will be blow back. I liked Ann Coulter's take on it. She said "As Republicans we need to reach across the aisle and show the new Democratic president the same respect that the democrats and the media have shown the current Republican president. Tomorrow, if not sooner." In that vein, here's the post:

McCain, in the third debate, was reticent to call Obama a liar. However, as Mark Twain said, there are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics. Obama deploys all three.

ACORN
Here, in his own words, is his explanation of his relationship with ACORN: "Now, with respect to ACORN, ACORN is a community organization. Apparently what they've done is they were paying people to go out and register folks, and apparently some of the people who were out there didn't really register people, they just filled out a bunch of names. It had nothing to do with us. We were not involved."

Here's what he's not telling you1:

• In 1992, Obama directed Project Vote - an arm of ACORN that also encouraged voter registration. This means he's intimately familiar with their tactics.
• Around the same time, Obama began teaching classes for "Future Leaders Identified by ACORN." This means he taught their future leaders - and guess what? 2008 is the future to those 1992 trainees.
• In 1995, Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois for its supposed failure to implement a federal law designed to make voter registration easier, and thus increasing the likelihood of voter fraud. This means that not only was he aware of their tactics, but he went to court to ensure that they could practice them!
• Obama also supports them in a fiduciary manner:

1. He joined two well-known boards with strong ties to ACORN - the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation. Under Obama's watch, the Chicago ACORN branch received thousands of dollars in grants from both organizations.
2. $832,000 given to Citizen's United, Inc to fund Acorn's "Get Out The Vote" campaign. Given all this support, don't be surprised if he claims ACORN as a dependent on his taxes (since he repeats so often that he hates paying them.)
3. Obama accepted the endorsement of ACORN in 2008. In a press release touting the endorsement on his official campaign website, Obama says: "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues that you care about my entire career."
   

So here is a real clear example of what Obama says being different from what Obama does. At it's most benign, he's practicing the "sin of omission" - lying by not telling all of the truth. But - a sin of omission is still a sin! He may not have directed ACORN in this instance of voter manipulation, but he doesn't tell them to stop either. He's an accessory after the fact, he denies the depth of his involvement, therefore, I file this under the category of a "LIE."

Taxes
"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama said, adding, "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too ... When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." This is his famous response to Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher's question about his tax policies.

Obama has repeatedly thrown out this notion that he is giving 95% of Americans a tax cut. The facts do not bear this out. 30% of Americans, either by virtue of low income or the number of dependents, do not pay any taxes. You can't provide a reduction on $0.00. You can give a rebate, which is not a tax cut. He uses (successfully it turned out) semantics and statistics to fool people. What's even funnier that when Bush pushed through his $600 rebate for the 2007 tax year, Obama railed against it, as did his wife, saying rebates do not work. Michelle Obama asked what Bush expected people to do with the money - go out and buy earrings? (That tells you the kind of shopping she does! But Palin being a shopaholic - oooh, that's bad.) But when the rebate is Obama's idea, even if it's $100 less, well, suddenly it's a good thing.

Currently the 5% of income earners in America pay 80% of the income taxes collected annually. The top 10% pay 90% of the tax revenues. 30% don't pay income tax. That means that 60% of the population pays 10%. If the tax revenue were a dollar, and there were twenty people paying it, one person would pay $0.80, one person would pay $0.10, twelve people would pay less than $0.01, and 6 people would pay nothing. But in Obama's mind, that one person paying the $0.80 is not paying enough. This set up is, in his mind (and in his words), the "tragedy of the civil rights movement" - that the supreme court didn't mandate wealth redistribution. Never mind that the supreme court is there to enforce existing laws, not create new ones. This is the real Obama, and this is what we can expect of him - legislation that despite what he says to the contrary, will punish success.

Tomorrow - I'll talk about the deceptive "Freedom Of Choice" act that he promised will be the first piece of legislation he signs into law.

1http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/10/mccain_memo_attacks_obama_on_a.html

The man makes me want to start smoking cigars

This guy is funny. Too bad more people didn't see his video before the election. Don't play out loud if the f-bomb can get you in trouble.

Things that make me go "hmmm..."

The Freedom Of Choice Act (has passed the house, will be debated in the Senate, and Obama has promised Planned Parenthood it will be the first piece of legislation he signs into law) provides that any woman of any age can get an abortion, even a minor without parental consent. At the same time, you can't get a tattoo without parental consent unless you're 18.

You have to wait five days (a "cooling off" period) to get a handgun - which might be used to kill someone - but you can get an abortion at will, with no waiting period, which kills someone every time.

You can't shoot an intruder in your own home unless your life is being threatened (and Obama wants to change that law to reduce your legal protection if you do shoot someone) but you can get an abortion if your financial or mental health, not physical health, will be threatened.

Will we have to reap the whirlwind?

From Rich Band of Investorplace regarding the plans to let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010 (this doesn't even touch on the tax increases the RePO team - Reid-Pelosi-Obama - will enact):

According to the most recent Heritage Foundation Report, the results will be shocking…

• One million jobs lost each year from 2010 – 2014
• More than $100 billion lost in economic output during the same time period
  
• An epic slowdown in wage and salary growth, and along with it the…
  
• Evaporation of consumer spending

These are but a few of the dire predictions coming out from the financial pundits. We know for a fact that a lower tax rate stimulates the economy (look at the Irish miracle for proof) but against this Obama wants to cut off tax breaks for oil companies and those companies that export jobs overseas. If only it were that simple. Those added costs of doing business will be passed on to the consumer, so instead of trickle down economics we will have trickle up poverty. Those who can least afford increases in energy costs will be affected the worst...of course phase two is to take money from the people who are successful and give it to those people who are most affected by the manufactured spike in prices. That's right - Obama wants to punish companies for being successful, and when the poor get hit by the backlash, he'll penalize individuals for being successful. Jeremiah Wright called it the US of KKK A. We may as well call it the USSA - the United Socialist States of America.

I realize this is melodramatic, and I hope these predictions are wrong, but if they're right no one can say we didn't see it coming and no one that voted for Obama - that's you Mom and Dad - can complain about it. You all knew these issues were out there and chose to ignore them, so play the hand you're dealt. You heard it here first!