May 29, 2012

"In this video, what is astounding is that Rebecca, the Planned Parenthood counselor, starts arranging with the actor about how to get a late-term abortion."

"To wait until her pregnancy is so developed that — and using Medicaid for this, using the state to pay for the ultrasound to determine the gender, and then to do a late term abortion if it was a little girl."

ADDED: Planned Parenthood responds:
"Within three days of this patient interaction, the staff member’s employment was ended and all staff members at this affiliate were immediately scheduled for retraining in managing unusual patient encounters...."

This spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America [said] that the organization condemns seeking abortions on the basis of gender, but its policy is to provide “high quality, confidential, nonjudgmental care to all who come into” its health centers. That means that no Planned Parenthood clinic will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selective abortions (Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois).
Then why did they fire the staff member? I'm guessing the problem was that she colluded with the "patient" about how to extract money from Medicaid and services from the OB doctor in her effort to find out whether she was pregnant with a girl.

216 comments:

1 – 200 of 216   Newer›   Newest»
Bob_R said...

Gotcher war against women right here.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Choice, right?

Moose said...

I really don't see the outrage about *what and when* you get an abortion done. Abortion in the first trimester vs "late term" abortion is equally fatal to the fetus. And equally "moral".

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...

You should be allowed to sex-select if you've already got too many of one or the other.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lyssa said...

If it's OK to have an abortion because you "can't afford" a baby, or it doesn't fit into your lifestyle, or whatever (and you somehow can't figure out that whole adoption thing, I guess), why is it not OK to have an abortion because you would prefer one sex over the other?

Either abortion is the taking of a human life, or it is not. The right to life doesn't change because you don't like the reason.

Anonymous said...

Astounding. We were discussing this just a couple weeks ago here on a thread and I got pounded for saying it should be illegal to do abortions for sex selection, or gender identification.

IF these videos aren't some Breibart type doctored videos, we as a nation need to redefine which types of abortion should remain legal. It's Eugenics.

Bob Ellison said...

Abortion makes for fewer humans.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Hi Allie!

"we as a nation need to redefine which types of abortion should remain legal."

Some of us don't need to redefine nothin' Some of us figured out a long time ago that you either declare a fetus the same as a skin tag, or you don't. Trying to decide which kinds of murder are more murder-y than others is going to be an impossible task, my friend.

I, for one, can't wait to see the feminists agonize over this one. Does a woman's right to choose extend to serially murdering her daughters because she doesn't want to have a daughter? Film at 11!

Dave D said...

Allie: If it's "nonviable tissue mass", why does the reason or date of the abortion even matter? If you've already written off the unborn as "not fully human", then why does any of this matter? (i.e late versus early baby "choice"...er...murder; "choice"-based sexing, etc;).

X said...

allie, let's not get it twisted. you got mocked for your super narrow window of abortions you don't like.

cold pizza said...

A voice was heard in Ramah. -CP

Scott M said...

I realize I can be rather thick at times so someone help me out with the following:

A poll released this month by the Lozier Institute, a research arm of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, found that 77 percent of respondents would support a law banning sex-selective abortions. Only Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Arizona have such laws.

It seems like it would be ridiculously easy to circumvent such a law. What's the purpose of having it other than to make the legislators feel good or have something on the books that says it's icky?

Anonymous said...

Lyssa, so what point are these people who made these videos trying to make? Trying to make Planned Parenthood look even worse? Or what?

Dave D said...

Erika beat me to the punch!

ndspinelli said...

Allie, We know it's not just the "Breitbart-type" that doctors videos. NBC, the most left of networks, fired employees for doctoring Trayvon Martins 911 tapes. You didn't need to label the doctoring, just "doctored" would suffice.

ndspinelli said...

"alleged doctored" would be the most accurate.

Shooting from ther hip is only helpful in gunfights, Allie.

Anonymous said...

X, as Scott pointed out, 77 percent of people polled, would be in favor of banning sex selection abortions, I am in the majority, so your analysis that my view on abortion is narrow would be wrong.

This banning of sex selection abortions are already illegal in the states he mentioned in his comment.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Mitchell wrote:

"You should be allowed to sex-select if you've already got too many of one or the other."

I was born in 1959. Four siblings, three boys and one girl. Thanks for the support, Mitchell.

Brent said...

This happens everyday, hundreds, perhaps thousands of times - at Planned parenthood Centers.

And everyone - and that means EVERYONE - knows it.

Abortion in America - pro-choicers have to lie about it every. single. day.

YoungHegelian said...

Can we PLEASE stop being surprised when abortion providers are shown to be jerks? Anytime someone provides a service to people in distress there's going to be the temptation to milk the mark for all they're worth.

It happens in funeral homes. It happens in the sex industries. It happens in payday loans.

The Left always wanted to pretend that abortion providers were of the standard of cardiac surgeons, except they worked a bit lower down. The truth is that they're two steps above tattoo parlors, and the medical profession has known it for years.

Anonymous said...

Nick, I am leery of all of these video exposes, no matter what source.

William said...

Abortion for gender selection doesn't just happen in China and India. It happens here, and it happens a lot. I do not understand why this is not a feminist issue. The right to exist should trump the right to have an abortion......I remember reading about Beatrice Webb, the Fabian Socialist. She was not a suffragette. She felt that efforts to enable women to vote distracted from the more important goal of bringing socialism to Great Britain.....Liberals like to mock religious beliefs, but they are unaware of the prissiness and contradictions of their own value systems.

Lyssa said...

Lyssa, so what point are these people who made these videos trying to make? Trying to make Planned Parenthood look even worse? Or what?

Yes. And to show that this whole "war on women" stuff is BS. And, hopefully, to make people think about and ask questions like that, and realize that the fetus has rights that they can't just wish away. It's unfortunate but true that many people can't put those rights into context without thinking about them in a different way.

Matt Sablan said...

"IF these videos aren't some Breibart type doctored videos"

-- Saying it over and over again? Doesn't make it true.

Lyssa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I'd like to ban late term abortion.

Spare me the "all those poor mother's are about to die" garbage.

Scott M said...

This banning of sex selection abortions are already illegal in the states he mentioned in his comment.

So what? What difference does it make if it's illegal? Example: you live in one of the states that has already made this illegal. Is late-term abortion illegal in all of these states? If not, what's to stop a woman from aborting once she learns the sex without telling the councilor her reason behind the decision?

As far as I know, a woman can simply say she doesn't want the child and that's sufficient to rip it out of her body and kill it.

Or did I miss something?

edutcher said...

Sex selection has been the dirtiest of the dirty little secrets surrounding abortion for years.

Next to keeping those darker races under control, of course.

AllieOop said...

IF these videos aren't some Breibart type doctored videos, we as a nation need to redefine which types of abortion should remain legal.

And which other videos has Breitbart produced that have been doctored?

Or is doctored Lefty for, "Damn, they're onto us".

It's Eugenics.

So Margaret Sanger and her penpal, Der Reichsfuhrer-SS, have an admirer.

Christopher in MA said...

IF these videos aren't some type of Brietbart type doctored videos -

Care to provide examples? Or are you just parroting the NPR meme of the week?

- we as a nation need to redefine which types of abortion should remain legal.

Who's "we," paleface? In any event, Dave D made the point - since the clump of cells (a "punishment," in the words of your Little Black Jesus) is nothing more than an insensiate parasite, why be concerned about whether sex-selective (or, even better, same-sex-attracted-selective) abortions even matter?

It's Eugenics.

Mmm hmm. The goal of Saint Margaret Sanger and the operating principle of Planned Murderhood.

I always said that if we got to the point where certain PC criteria could be determined before birth, the left would desperately look for a way to wash the blood of millions off its hands. Thank you for proving my point, Allie.

Thorley Winston said...

When I was in college, we had a speaker who said that someday they were going find out the part of the human genome it was that determined sexual orientation and it would be possible to conduct a test to determine whether or not your child would be gay while s/he was still in the womb. The speaker was pretty confident that as soon as that was possible, the pro-life movement would self-destruct. I suggested that it wouldn’t have any noticeable impact on pro-lifers but that it might be those who support abortion rights who would have the conflict.

Ann Althouse said...

"I really don't see the outrage about *what and when* you get an abortion done. Abortion in the first trimester vs "late term" abortion is equally fatal to the fetus. And equally "moral"."

The scenario faked by the actor was that she was going to an obstetrician and acting like she wanted to go through with the pregnancy, deliberately allowing the baby to keep growing up to the point where an ultrasound would reveal the sex, and then, if it was a girl, getting what would be a more expensive abortion. All of this would be paid for with government benefits. So it's quite a bit of a fraud, stealing from the taxpayers and appropriating the services of the doctor.

So even if PP has a policy of not judging the clients choice, but supporting her with friendly helpfulness -- which is what I see in the video -- it is a separate matter to deceive the government and the doctor.

Of course, it is also a separate matter, morally, to destroy a more developed unborn child. We could discuss this point, and it's understandable that you might want to take the position that it is equally morally wrong to destroy the unborn earlier or later. Others will disagree.

But people need to see that in the scenario presented in the video, PP is facilitating a very serious fraud, and even if you think abortion is just fine, you should have a problem with that.

MadisonMan said...

What's the purpose of having it other than to make the legislators feel good or have something on the books that says it's icky?

Legislators can go back to their funding sources and say they did something!!!!. Oh, and can you write me a check please?

Sex-selection was a storyline on ER in the first few years of the show.

Matt Sablan said...

"Astounding. We were discussing this just a couple weeks ago here on a thread and I got pounded for saying it should be illegal to do abortions for sex selection, or gender identification."

-- For what other reasons should it not be legal? That's the problem; either all in, or not. Special carve outs are... icky. For example, what if the brain studies are true and you can tell by looking at a brain if someone will have a higher chance of having certain beliefs?

Allowed to abort children who may disagree with you religiously?

bgates said...

IF these videos aren't some Breibart type doctored videos

You could have avoided the casual, baseless libel of a dead man by naming a leftist news organization that actually has doctored what they broadcast, if you weren't a mindless leftist hack yourself.

Anonymous said...

April Apple I agree that late term abortion should not be legal.

Moose said...

"So even if PP has a policy of not judging the clients choice, but supporting her with friendly helpfulness -- which is what I see in the video -- it is a separate matter to deceive the government and the doctor."

I'd call it more focusing on an underserved market. Classic marketing tactics.

ndspinelli said...

Allie, I'll have to take you @ your word. However, that's not what you said, now is it? I often try to be a Allie ally but you sometimes make it very difficult. You like to draw on your experience as a nurse. I like to draw on experience as an investigator. And, being an investigator I always wanted to speak w/ people face to face. Phone sucks and this venue sucks worse. That's why, if you want to be understood, it's incumbent upon you to be as precise as possible w/ your language.

bagoh20 said...

That's like watching a horror film, but it's real and happening every day. Women sitting around discussing with smiles and jokes as they plan to kill innocent girls. All they need are some nice sexy NAZI SS uniforms.

I watched "Band of Brothers" yesterday and this immediately reminded me of the one where they discovered the concentration camps.

I get the same feeling of despair and anger that people could care so little for other innocent humans and do it in an organised group dynamic with nobody saying: "Hell No!".

Anonymous said...

Oh for goodness sake you people are going to go all nuts over a perceived Breibart slight? Good grief, abortion not important enough to discuss without being sidetracked by outrage over Breitbart?

Saint Croix said...

I really don't see the outrage about *what and when* you get an abortion done.

I think there's a big difference between killing a microscopic human organism (which is what IUD does), and injecting poison into a baby's neck.

I consider IUD to be birth control. Doesn't bother me at all.

I consider Dr. Carhart to be a murderer. The two Carhart opinions describe, in ghastly detail, his murder techniques. And we have some appalling discussion from some vicious Ivy League people about how this is a Constitutional right.

The simplistic "every abortion is the same" argument is idiotic. They're not all the same.

Why should we assume they're all the same? We don't even think all recognized killings are the same. For instance, killing somebody in a war is different than murdering a stranger. There's murder one and murder two and manslaughter and self-defense killing. We have all sorts of different rules for killing. The Texas rule overturned by the Supreme Court defined abortion as manslaughter. That's not murder one. It's different.

If liberals are appalled at hate crimes--and many of them are--then I say rub their faces in the hate crime aspects of abortion. We have a 95% kill rate on babies with Down's syndrome. There are some Nazi aspects to that that shame and embarrass liberals. We are killing girls because they are girls. Focus on that.

If the Supreme Court has killed one baby, they are baby killers.

If pro-lifers are 99% wrong and 1% right, then we have killed 500,000 innocent babies.

Focus on the obvious murders. Try not to get into some Catholic thing about the evils of IUD. I'm a fanatical pro-lifer and that doesn't work on me. Why would you expect it to work on pro-choice people, or people who aren't paying attention?

tim maguire said...

Either it's a person or it isn't. It is the height of hypocrisy to get upset about some mistreatments of the fetus and not others.

Arresting women who use drugs while pregnant, but allowing them, or even paying them, to get abortions.

It is virtually impossible to hold a logically consistent pro-abortion position (sorry, I decline to use the euphemism "pro-choice").

Moral cowardice.

Moose said...

..and more to the point - what PP is doing here is technically violating the law, however from a moral standpoint we're just arguing nuance.

Now using these videos to pile on an already seedy industry - meh. Whatever.

Unknown said...

Staggering.

Sure, let's have another tweak in the law, that will do it. Then it will be "safe, legal and rare."

The cool efficiency of state-sanctioned killing!

Staggering.

James said...

The scenario faked by the actor was that she was going to an obstetrician and acting like she wanted to go through with the pregnancy, deliberately allowing the baby to keep growing up to the point where an ultrasound would reveal the sex, and then, if it was a girl, getting what would be a more expensive abortion. All of this would be paid for with government benefits. So it's quite a bit of a fraud, stealing from the taxpayers and appropriating the services of the doctor.

So even if PP has a policy of not judging the clients choice, but supporting her with friendly helpfulness -- which is what I see in the video -- it is a separate matter to deceive the government and the doctor.

Of course, it is also a separate matter, morally, to destroy a more developed unborn child. We could discuss this point, and it's understandable that you might want to take the position that it is equally morally wrong to destroy the unborn earlier or later. Others will disagree.

But people need to see that in the scenario presented in the video, PP is facilitating a very serious fraud, and even if you think abortion is just fine, you should have a problem with that.


Fraud? Utilizing available programs and services doesn't sound like 'fraud' to me. Where's the deception?

Matt Sablan said...

"Oh for goodness sake you people are going to go all nuts over a perceived Breibart slight? Good grief, abortion not important enough to discuss without being sidetracked by outrage over Breitbart?"

-- So, why'd you get outraged over Breitbart and sidetrack the discussion? You're being called to the carpet on it for saying something that is untrue. Deal.

ndspinelli said...

Allie,"you people". When you're in a hole the first rule is to stop digging. You shot from the hip and hit your foot. You don't like being called on it. and now you're using "you people". What's next, "That woman"? This should be about abortion..YOU took a cheap shot and created the diversion. Chrissake Allie!!

Anonymous said...

I don't see a problem with this.

This is saving the parents from the agony and tumult of a later decision to switch their child's gender.

How can that be bad?

Brian Brown said...

If this weren't so tragic, it would be funny.

This is example 12,574 where liberal ignorance forms political opinions.

Isn't it convenient to be "pro-choice" when you get to pretend such icky things don't really happen?

MisterBuddwing said...

Over at the Daily Caller, there are posters demanding to know where NOW is concerning this issue.

Years ago, I remember seeing Molly Yard, then NOW president, on TV being asked about sex-selective abortion.

Yard, doggedly consistent, expressed the view that a woman should be able to get an abortion for whatever reason - including sex selection.

Anonymous said...

OK, Nick, I took a cheap shot, I'm guilty as hell, so can we discuss the topic now?

lemondog said...

Gendercide

damikesc said...

IF these videos aren't some Breibart type doctored videos

Doctored...

*snicker*

Sure, hold on to that.

we as a nation need to redefine which types of abortion should remain legal. It's Eugenics.

Your side of the equation has argued, for a while now, that ALL of them should be legal.

It's not like pro-lifers haven't mentioned that girls and blacks are aborted more than boys and whites for years now.

And there are no possible restrictions that would hold up to legal challenges. "Life of the mother" is a broad term since delivery, in and of itself, is a potential lethal act.

Heck, partial birth abortion --- which has absolutely no true medical justification --- couldn't be outlawed. And that was flat-out infanticide.

Lyssa, so what point are these people who made these videos trying to make?

Making people SEE what they are embracing is a good reason to do much of anything.

Trying to make Planned Parenthood look even worse? Or what?

I thought that group was VITAL to women's health. How can they possibly look bad with that in mind?

Good grief, abortion not important enough to discuss without being sidetracked by outrage over Breitbart?

...why are you complaining since you brought him up in the first place?

ndspinelli said...

Yes, as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for womaning-up. But, I like you, many here don't.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Mister Buddwing said,
"Over at the Daily Caller, there are posters demanding to know where NOW is concerning this issue.

Years ago, I remember seeing Molly Yard, then NOW president, on TV being asked about sex-selective abortion.

Yard, doggedly consistent, expressed the view that a woman should be able to get an abortion for whatever reason - including sex selection."

5/29/12 10:21 AM

Very interesting, perhaps this is a good thing, maybe people are "evolving", would that be a bad thing? Or maybe it displays hypocrisy which isn't exclusive to either side.

Scott M said...

Seriously. Why make this practice illegal? If a woman wants to get an abortion if it's it a girl, all she has to do is keep her reasons to herself, wait until she knows the gender, then decide to have the abortion. She never has to tell a state that's make sex-selection illegal her reasoning as abortion law is currently formulated, does she?

The pro-abortion side must just love waking up in the morning and catching that first glimpse in the mirror.

Saint Croix said...

The basic evil is Roe v. Wade. It defined a baby in the womb as a legal non-person. The Supreme Court denies her humanity. She's property. You own her. You can do what you want to her.

It's no use blaming the President or the Congress or the mother or the doctor or Planned Parenthood. Place the blame where it belongs--on the unelected branch of our government.

Pro-lifers need to fight for the humanity of the baby. Anything that reminds liberals of the baby's humanity is a good thing. She's a girl. You're killing a girl because she's a girl.

She's not property. You're not shopping. You don't get to take the baby back to the baby store.

This is the slavery fight all over again. The first step is legal recognition of the baby's humanity.

Matt Sablan said...

Scott: Legislators making themselves feel good is very important for society. At least they're not making *bad* laws when they make ineffective laws.

tim maguire said...

Prof, she's not faking anything. She does want to go through with the pregnancy. So long as it's a boy. If it turns out to be a girl, then she'll decide then to terminate.

Where's the fraud?

And who cares about using abortion for gender selection? Or health selection? Or hair-color selection?

Either the fetus is human or it isn't. Either none of it's fair game or all of it is.

Here's a little thought experiment: at what point does the fetus become human? What happened at that precise moment to make the non-human human? And how do you set up an abortion regime that distinguishes between the human and the non-human according to this standard?

The truth is, there are only two points in a persons life when what is here now is fundamentally different from what was there a moment ago--the moment of conception and the moment of death.

There is no other place you can point to. Is there?

At least the moment of birth people have something specific to draw a line across.

Meanwhile, the more nuanced people, the trimester people, the development people, support a regime that, even by their own standards, results in the cold-blooded murder of hundreds of thousands of children every year ("children" not just by my definition, but by theirs).

And they think themselves intelligent decent people.

ndspinelli said...

ScottM, We can call them "Wink and a nod" abortions. Or, The Sgt. Schultz abortion, "I see nothing..I say nothing."

Vegas has the odds @ 50,000-1 against this making the evening news tonight.

ndspinelli said...

Allie, I totally agree that no one has the market cornered on hypocrisy.

Ann Althouse said...

"Fraud? Utilizing available programs and services doesn't sound like 'fraud' to me. Where's the deception?"

The fraud is in extracting medical services and money to pay for them under the pretense that one intends to continue the pregnancy, when in fact, she is allowing the fetus to mature for the purpose of inspecting it for sex organs and then, if something that is 50% likely turns out to be true, terminating the pregnancy. That information withheld from the doctor and the government is relevant to the doctor's willingness to treat this patient and the government's willingness to pay. Covering it up is a fraud that PP should not participate in.

Scott M said...

Covering it up is a fraud that PP should not participate in.

If PP is complicit in advising people to do this, it's tantamount to advising someone how to commit fraud. However, from the mother's point of view, if she simply keeps her trap shut (a slim hope given the gender penalty against) about her aims, all she has to do is sit back and wait until she knows the gender.

No one would ever be the wiser.

Balfegor said...

Re: Ann Althouse:

That information withheld from the doctor and the government is relevant to the doctor's willingness to treat this patient and the government's willingness to pay.

I'm not familiar with the relevant programs -- is it relevant to the government's willingness to pay? I thought Medicaid paid for it no matter what.

Matt Sablan said...

I think it is still fraud, even if the baby ends up as a boy (and the pregnancy kept). Or is it Schroedinger's Fraud, where whether it is fraud matters on the end result that we won't know for a bit?

Christopher in MA said...

Covering it up is a fraud PP should not participate in.

One doesn't generally expect criminal organizations to concern themselves with legalities.

Scott M said...

Or is it Schroedinger's Fraud, where whether it is fraud matters on the end result that we won't know for a bit?

Well-played. I thought of the cat because of the dichotomy, but couldn't think of a snarky enough way to put it into the discussion.

Anonymous said...

Balfegor,
Medicaid pays for abortions in 15 states. A woman working, with an income over the poverty guidelines will not be eligable for Medicaid, so they would pay out of their own pocket.

Medicaid does not pay for all abortions.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The scenario faked by the actor was that she was going to an obstetrician and acting like she wanted to go through with the pregnancy, deliberately allowing the baby to keep growing up to the point where an ultrasound would reveal the sex, and then, if it was a girl, getting what would be a more expensive abortion. All of this would be paid for with government benefits. So it's quite a bit of a fraud, stealing from the taxpayers and appropriating the services of the doctor.

And THIS is exactly why Planned Parenthood should never be funded by the taxpayers. Government should have nothing to do with abortion because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to abortion of any kind.

If people want to have a Planned Parenthood type of organization and support the ability of women to murder their children, it should be privately funded through donations and donations.

Keep the taxpayers out of it. If you want to support abortion....open your OWN wallet and give them some money. You can't have mine.

This is the same objection from the Catholic Church towards the mandatory coverage of abortion drugs and birth control pills for the sole purpose of preventing pregnancy.

Government FORCING you to pay for or participate in activities that are morally repugnant and which violate your religious principles.

MadisonMan said...

Vegas has the odds @ 50,000-1 against this making the evening news tonight.

I'm rarely convinced that what I see on line is the whole story. The Evening News doesn't care if only half the story is there.

Of course, that depends on which half is missing.

Saint Croix said...

The truth is, there are only two points in a persons life when what is here now is fundamentally different from what was there a moment ago--the moment of conception and the moment of death.

You realize the "moment of death" has to be defined by law? It used to be absence of heart and lung function. Now, in all 50 states, it's total brain death.

The opposite of conception is not "the moment of death" but when the human body has disintegrated to nothingness.

Conception is the moment the body comes into being. Thus if conception is the critical measure of life, we should be defining death as when the body utterly ceases to exist.

Yet we don't do that. We define dead people as dead even though their bodies are right there in front of us.

Our "moment of death" is total brain death. What this means, obviously, is that the onset of brain activity in the baby is quite important. After all, you need brain activity if you are going to suffer a death under our laws.

In Judeo-Christianity, we recognize that human life is beyond mere existence of flesh. We look for a soul, right? We look for animation. We look for life. If total brain death is when the soul departs from the body ("death"), then the onset of brain activity is when the soul appears ("life").

Life and death have to correspond!

Of course a state may very well have interest in protecting the future life of the baby. An early abortion may still be bad. But I think it's sloppy to assume that every abortion is a homicide, or forbidden by equal protection.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Madison Man, don't worry, I have no doubt that Planned Parenthood is in a hurry to affirm this practice and explain its reasoning to the American public. No doubt a press conference is being called right this minute to explain their side of the story.

Tom Spaulding said...

Gattica! Gattica! Gattica!

MadisonMan said...

Erika, I'm not holding my breath for it.

Scott M said...

If total brain death is when the soul departs from the body ("death"), then the onset of brain activity is when the soul appears ("life").

Who are we to set the rules for souls? It would be just as arbitrary, and just as valid, to make the moment a soul enters the body conception and the moment the soul exits as the ceasing of brain function. Since we have no way to quantify or detect a soul, we have no way of knowing the rules about it's containment/interfacing with our biological systems.

Bob Ellison said...

Rights do conflict sometimes. Ted Kennedy didn't want wind turbines on his seascape. George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin apparently had conflicting views of aggression and defence. It is foolish to think that a pregnant woman's rights can be perfectly divorced from the rights of her unborn baby.

James said...

The fraud is in extracting medical services and money to pay for them under the pretense that one intends to continue the pregnancy, when in fact, she is allowing the fetus to mature for the purpose of inspecting it for sex organs and then, if something that is 50% likely turns out to be true, terminating the pregnancy. That information withheld from the doctor and the government is relevant to the doctor's willingness to treat this patient and the government's willingness to pay. Covering it up is a fraud that PP should not participate in.

Are the patients legally obliged to disclose such information? Is it fraud to interview someone for a job that I have no intention of hiring, or to test drive a car that I have no intention of purchasing?

Kirk Parker said...

Saint Croix,

"The Supreme Court denies [the baby's] humanity. She's property. You own her. You can do what you want to her."

Further outrage comes from the last sentence quoted. My dog may be my property, but we have laws that prohibit me torturing it*. My house may be my property, but I can't just burn it down. There are lots and lots of restrictions (some of which would remain valid even in the most non-nanny of states); but your unborn child? Kill away, no questions asked.

------------------------------
*I'm sure sticking scissors into the back of its neck and up into its skull would get the attention of at least a few prosecutors in a few places, right?

vet66 said...

How did that sex selection program work for the Chinese? Now they have too many males and insufficient females to keep the population growing. As said by others, that is a real war on women.

Kirk Parker said...

Matthew,

"At least they're not making *bad* laws when they make ineffective laws."

I see your point, but mostly disagree with it. To quote one of my favorite rule-of-man guys, "Quantity has a quality all its own".

(OMG, now *I'm* getting WV in the unreadable Gothic font, too. Good grief, Blogger!!!)

Anonymous said...

Vett 66, not only China, India also.

Big Mike said...

I agree that abortion ought to be safe and legal, but abortion for gender selection crosses a line. This is not a moral argument, it is merely a reflection that historically men have gone to war for women, and not merely in the case of the Iliad. I do not look forward to a world with a huge excess of men over women.

As to how to draw the line, as Scott has already noted I'm afraid that's much easier said than done. Maybe we need to forbid late term abortions entirely? That seems equally wrong.

Christopher in MA said...

And THIS is exactly why Planned Parenthood should never be funded by the taxpayers. . .if you want to support abortion, open your OWN wallet and give them some money. You can't have mine.

Hear, hear, DBQ. I'm with you on that. I'm not the constitutional scholar that the president is, so I've never found the clause in that document which mandates abortion as a right that trumps personal morality. Of course, I'm a bitter clinger and all that.

Here's a fun game to play (of course, it really only works when there's a Republican president): find your local lefty. Say to them "I'm going on a tax strike! I'm sick of the government committing murder on my dime! No more money to the military-industrial complex!"

You will no doubt be cheered on with a "Preach it, sister!"

Then continue: "I'm going on a tax strike! I'm sick of the government committing murder on my dime! No more money to Planned Parenthood!"

Stand back and watch lefty's head explode. Big laffs!

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Is it fraud to interview someone for a job that I have no intention of hiring, or to test drive a car that I have no intention of purchasing?

Really?

You think those are equivalent to using taxpayer money to deliberately choose to murder your daughter, because she isn't a boy?

But, as to your examples. They may not be fraud in the legal sense, but it certain makes you a giant asshole. You are wasting other people's resources, their time and causing harm in that the job applicant may be losing out on a real job somewhere else and the car salesman lost his "up" or chance to sell a car to someone else.

I certainly hope you aren't such a dick in real life.

purplepenquin said...

Government should have nothing to do with abortion because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to abortion of any kind.

Government should have nothing to do with war because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to war of any kind.

Government should have nothing to do with highways because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to motorized travel of any kind.

Government should have nothing to do with jails and prisons because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to locking people up for any reason.

Government should have nothing to do with courts because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to judgement of any kind.

Government should have nothing to do with anything because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to any thing of any kind.

Saint Croix said...

Michael Stokes Paulsen is a law professor who has been at the forefront of legal arguments for banning this type of abortion.

wyo sis said...

Murder.
Fraud.
Self-delusion.
It's apparently all about degree and political affiliation. No one is guilty as long as we can find what we think is a good justification and as long as they're on our side. Heck, just being on the correct "side" is enough in most cases.

n.n said...

It may be time to revisit the outcome of the civil and human rights movements. The progress since its inception can be measured in the devaluation of human life through the denigration of individual dignity.

As for abortion, it seems to be a choice taken by a man and woman who dream of instant gratification without consequence. When conception occurs following a voluntary behavior, "harshing one's mellow" is an unreasonable justification to artificially terminate a human life.

And the rest... Well, involuntary exploitation is considered normal and even progressive by a large minority of Americans. They vote for its preservation and even expansion, presumably because their dignity is a priority concern.

Freeman Hunt said...

It's almost cute that some of you think sex selection abortion is worse than "Omigod, I'd be so embarrassed if people knew" abortion or "I won't look good in my swimsuit on spring break" abortion or "I can't afford to have a baby and buy Coach handbags" abortion.

You're all so well socialized into modern political correctness.

Rusty said...

purplepenquin said...
Government should have nothing to do with abortion because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to abortion of any kind.

Government should have nothing to do with war because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to war of any kind


You know constitutionally our government has to, by law, protect us, right? There is no constitutional right to an abortion.


Government should have nothing to do with highways because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to motorized travel of any kind.


Except that government constitutionally empowered to regulate commerce and provide for roads and stuff, right?

Government should have nothing to do with jails and prisons because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to locking people up for any reason.


See my first comment.

Government should have nothing to do with courts because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to judgement of any kind.


Again one of the few things our government is obligated to do for us under the constitution.

Government should have nothing to do with anything-that might infringe on those constitutional guarantees outlined in the Bill of Right- because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to any thing of any kind.

Fixed that for you.
You might want to spend some time actually reading the document and the commentaries by the men who signed it..

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ Purple

Those things that are in the Constitution and that are a legitimate function of the State should be funded by taxpayers. A standing military, major roads and transportation infrastructure, a system of laws and enforcement of those laws.....all a part of governmental functions and Constitutional.

I don't see where in the Constitution it states that we should be forced to pay for your abortions, sex change operations or actually for ANY your discretionary medical procedures.

And.....as to the roads. I'm in favor of toll roads and toll bridges.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
buster said...

Ann Althouse said:

"PP is facilitating a very serious fraud, and even if you think abortion is just fine, you should have a problem with that."

I take your point, but I'm having trouble with the implied proposition that the fraud is worse than the abortion.

Freeman Hunt said...

"I'm so glad my mother is killing me so she doesn't have to shop at Costco and not because I'm a boy," said the baby.

Anonymous said...

St. Croix, thanks for linking to this article. In this article it states that 95 percent of people polled, oppose abortion based on sex selection. I knew eventually this would become a national debate, which is good.

X, I guess my view isn't narrow at all. It reflects the majority, it appears that you would fit into the 5 percent.

Christy said...

Forget fetus development. I'm unwilling to concede that the average teenager is fully human.

X said...

we all know women never lie, so this gender selection abortion ban looks foolproof from where I sit.

Fen said...

AllieTheFakeNurse: Oh for goodness sake you people are going to go all nuts over a perceived Breibart slight?

Says the "woman" who had a meltdown after being outed for posing here as a nurse...

Lactated Ringers, baby. Something a TRUE nurse could answer in her sleep.

Scott M said...

Forget fetus development. I'm unwilling to concede that the average teenager is fully human.

I had a marxist apartment manager once (associate prof at St Louis U, KMARX on his license plate) who said there were viable arguments for entities not being considered people until they could understand their rights and responsibilities.

In most other ways, he was a pretty level-headed guy and fun to debate.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
X said...

allie, you didn't understand what I meant by narrow. I didn't mean unpopular. I meant in comparison to On Demand.

Anonymous said...

Fen the wife beater, speaks again. Any visions of raping and murdering and then burning any women lately Fen, that was so interesting last month when you went off the deep end.

Anonymous said...

And Fen, no nurse with an ounce of self respect would get into a "prove you are a nurse" contest with a hospital security guard.

David said...

Let's assume PP is telling the truth when they say this activity is against their policy.

Then the problem is one of governance. The sense I get is that PP is not serious about training for or enforcing its standards, whatever they happen to be. Does PP have a set of rules for its providers? A code of conduct? How do they train people in adherence to these rules? How do they police and enforce the rules? Do they collect and analyze statistics on their patients and procedures? Does their board of directors conduct oversight of these and other matters?

My sense is that PP is a badly governed organization with weak internal controls and a culture of permissiveness and coverup.

Freeman Hunt said...

Abortionist: "Per state law, I must ask, are you seeking this abortion as a means of sex selection?"
Mother: "No, sir. Ever since I was a little girl I've wanted to know what it would be like to kill someone. I figure this is as close as I can get legally."
Abortionist: "That'll work."

Ann Althouse said...

"Are the patients legally obliged to disclose such information? Is it fraud to interview someone for a job that I have no intention of hiring, or to test drive a car that I have no intention of purchasing?"

The person is extracting money and services under false pretenses. I'm not even talking about whether it's specifically criminal. As a matter of ethics, PP should not be involved in this. And if Medicaid regulations don't define this as fraud, they should. We as voters should politically oppose welfare programs that permit this fraud of this kind if they do.

That is, defining fraud is a process that is subject to political choice. We need to notice where our tax money is thrown away and vocalize our objection.

Freeman Hunt said...

Now PP can trot out some sob stories about women whose boyfriends would beat them if they had a baby of the wrong sex.

Brian Brown said...

Government should have nothing to do with jails and prisons because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to locking people up for any reason.

Government should have nothing to do with courts because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to judgement of any kind.



I love that you're trying to draw an "analogy" between abortion and courts and jails.

Um, courts are noted in the actual constitution and so is "due process"

In other words, you're kind of stupid.

Freeman Hunt said...

Killing a baby girl because you want a baby boy. = OUTRAGEOUS! There outta be a law!

Killing a baby girl because you want a Hawaiian vacation. = Not our business. This is a fundamental human right.

Ann Althouse said...

"I take your point, but I'm having trouble with the implied proposition that the fraud is worse than the abortion."

How about stopping inferring it?

My argument is important because it would make sense to people, e.g., PP, who support access to abortion.

purplepenquin said...

Those things that are in the Constitution and that are a legitimate function of the State should be funded by taxpayers. A standing military, major roads and transportation infrastructure, a system of laws and enforcement of those laws.....all a part of governmental functions and Constitutional.

The Constitution also states that gov't shall "promote the general Welfare"...and the elected representatives of the citizens have decided that it is for the good of the general welfare to provide funding for these services.


Of course, we can discuss if that actually is good or bad for the country as a whole, and that is a fair discussion to have.

But to claim that the gov't shouldn't fund something simply because some folks have religious and moral objections means gov't shouldn't do anything at all....'cause people-being-people means that someone, somewhere, will have a moral/religious objection over anything.

Simon said...

If you're for abortion, you're for sex-selection abortions, you're for race-selection abortions, and you'll be for sexuality-selection abortion if and when they figure out how to test for that. You can't say "her body her choice" and that it's not her choice if her motives are on a government list. One can't be against this but for abortion generally; no coherent principle allows abortion and forbids selectivity (indeed, all abortion is selective). One must simply pick a side.

X said...

allie's abortion principle is basically gays and girls are good and deserve legal protection. everyone else is SOL.

Saint Croix said...

Who are we to set the rules for souls? It would be just as arbitrary, and just as valid, to make the moment a soul enters the body conception and the moment the soul exits as the ceasing of brain function.

You're defining a soul as having no relation to any biological characteristic. That's not the way I was referencing a soul. And I understand the urge to outlaw all abortions out of caution. I respect that.

But we do have biological criteria, markers for human life. Brain activity is such a marker and, legally, the vital one.

Brain activity may be "arbitrary" (I think it's a pretty good point myself), but it is our rule as a society. In any event, my point is not that our rule is right or wrong, but that we should apply it across the board. I'm making a procedural point, not a substantive one.

If brain activity is the important point to whether you are alive or not, then brain activity is important. We should be asking, before any abortion, if the baby has brain activity. If she does, then it's a homicide to terminate her.

We have death statutes in regard to when people die. Apply those statutes to the abortion controversy.

Kensington said...

It's not that all abortions are the same, or that there's no difference between "killing a microscopic human organism" and "injecting poison into a baby's neck."

It's that both of those things are wrong and evil.

Brian Brown said...

Government should have nothing to do with highways because the money is being forcibly taken from people who have religious and moral objections to motorized travel of any kind.


I'd love to know who those people are.

And, the existence of roads pre-dates the invention of the automobile.

The Constitution also states that gov't shall "promote the general Welfare"...and the elected representatives of the citizens have decided that it is for the good of the general welfare to provide funding for these services.


Yes, because nothing promotes the general welfare like murdering a 5 month old baby.

Further, it is debatable how many in the general public even know that planned parenthood recieve government funding.

Kensington said...

"The Left always wanted to pretend that abortion providers were of the standard of cardiac surgeons, except they worked a bit lower down. The truth is that they're two steps above tattoo parlors, and the medical profession has known it for years."

Above?

Scott M said...

We have death statutes in regard to when people die. Apply those statutes to the abortion controversy.

Okay, let's set aside the topic of the soul for one of a more readily quantifiable legal discussion. I don't necessarily disagree with your point about brain activity, but at this point I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Life and death are two different things, albeit related things. If they are different to the obvious extent that they are, why can't their qualifications be different as well? Perhaps the fertilized egg, containing all of the necessary (and necessarily combined) components of a human being, could be judge as alive on those merits alone. Death, on the other hand, is a wholly different thing and can still be judged as the ceasing of brain function because it is wholly different.

purplepenquin said...

The person is extracting money and services under false pretenses.

Excellent point! Was this woman even really pregnant, or was that just part of the acting game? Did the taxpayers end up pay for these staged shows (article seems to imply that they did it more than once) or did the group that produced the video end up reimbursing the costs afterwards?



Watching the video, I can't help but wonder if the clinic staff is specifically trained to not be judgmental towards patients.


(Side note: Planned Parenthood threads always are weird to me, 'cause it always takes a micro-second to know it ain't about me when I see someone reference "PP" :P )

Anonymous said...

X, you are speaking out of your ass. I have clearly stated I oppose late term abortion and think it should be outlawed. I have clearly stated I believe abortion to be murder, I've stated that it's my belief that life begins at conception because it is at that moment that it is given a soul.

I also have stated that I am conflicted on the legality of abortion. My personal belief system should not influence law. I have stated that I oppose overturning RoeV Wade, until and If we ever have a better abortion law.

Scott M said...

My personal belief system should not influence law.

Whatever should, then?

Matt Sablan said...

"Excellent point! Was this woman even really pregnant, or was that just part of the acting game? Did the taxpayers end up pay for these staged shows (article seems to imply that they did it more than once) or did the group that produced the video end up reimbursing the costs afterwards?"

-- Investigations into government and government funded entities are well within the rights of citizens, provided they followed the law in doing so (and, even in some cases, if the wrong being shown is egregious enough that we can overlook the lapse in the investigation).

I can't wait until a Republican is president again so that whistle blowing and investigative journalism are given respect again.

Freeman Hunt said...

This spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America [said] that the organization condemns seeking abortions on the basis of gender

LOL

Saint Croix said...

Freeman, of course you're right (as usual). But it's just another argument against hate crimes.

Why not use Alinsky here? Make the liberals live by their own rules.

Who came up with handicapped spaces for the handicapped? Liberals. And who came up with killing the handicapped in secret, a crime so awful liberals can't even speak about it? Again, liberals. Confront them with their own identity politics, and their hypocrisy.

X said...

like you said on the other thread allie, you're evolving. congrats. did you delete your early comments on that thread where you said there should be no limits? cuz you do that a lot.

Anonymous said...

X, I have no idea, go look. Then post them here if that trips your trigger.

Paul said...

You know the Nazis killed off the handicapped, mentally disabled, insane, aged, wrong political views, etc...

Looks more and more like the new Nazi is named Liberal.

Brian Brown said...

FYI, this employee has been fired.

Dave said...

Response from Planned Parenthood - "Within three days of this patient interaction, the staff member’s employment was ended and all staff members at this affiliate were immediately scheduled for retraining in managing unusual patient encounters. Today opponents of Planned Parenthood are promoting an edited video of that hoax patient encounter."

Note to Ann Althouse - You ignored all the stories regarding the viral video of the North Carolina Baptist preacher calling for rounding up "lesbians... homosexuals and queers" and putting them behind electric fences until they "die off"; which his church posted on their website. But you chose to post this story about yet another attempt to discredit an organization which provides health care access to women.

Pathetic

chickelit said...

Allie wrote: My personal belief system should not influence law

That's disingenous at best. Like everyone elese, you stand up to be counted. The difference with you is that you're big on supporting counter-majoritarian overrule--and you're a bit stuck in the past.

Saint Croix said...

Death, on the other hand, is a wholly different thing

I think life and death are intertwined. How do we measure death? By the absence of a biological characteristic. Thus that biological characteristic is the marker we look for to determine if you are alive.

Death = the stopping of life.

Are you breathing? Has your heart stopped beating? Has your brain ceased all function?

Under our law, that last one is of vital importance. Thus, it's hugely critical whether or not the baby has any brain function.

If she does, then cutting into her with a knife would kill her (under the death statute) and be a homicide.

I grant you the argument that we should be cautious about our death statutes. We might be wrong!

And I recognize the further argument that we might want to protect future life, the life-to-come. But as a former attorney I get super pissed off about the homicides we are doing in naked violation of our own rules.

chickelit said...

@Allie: And x is right--you're a habitual deleter of the record.

Matt Sablan said...

"Response from Planned Parenthood - "Within three days of this patient interaction, the staff member’s employment was ended and all staff members at this affiliate were immediately scheduled for retraining in managing unusual patient encounters. Today opponents of Planned Parenthood are promoting an edited video of that hoax patient encounter.""

-- That's convenient. So, prove it was edited. What did the employee really say? Do? Or was this it?

Also, really Planned Parenthood, your solution is to train people to not get suckered instead of training them not to encourage people to break the law?

That's... that's encouraging.

Anonymous said...

Chicklit, why do you think Supreme Court candidates are put through the ringer before being appointed?

MayBee said...

I'm not even talking about whether it's specifically criminal. As a matter of ethics, PP should not be involved in this.

But PP has a policy of not being judgmental. If they aren't going to be all judgey on someone who wants a late abortion on a perfectly healthy baby, why would they be judgey about someone who needs financial assistance so badly they would actually torture themselves by carrying a possibly unwanted fetus to get that assistance?

This girl wants access to abortion, and she is seeking a legal way to get it, and to get it paid for. Ethics really have no place if PP's is determined not to be judgemental.

Matt Sablan said...

Also, how do these people keep getting caught? Don't they have BS detectors? That's what bothers me about these and the voting fraud videos. There was no legitimate reason for any one not to know that something wasn't right, but they still agreed to help smuggle in underage prostitutes or give away ballots.

My first thought when I'm getting scammed, if the scammer has no clear benefit, is that I'm being punked. Are they just hiring incompetents at these places?

chickelit said...

AllieOop said...
Chicklit, why do you think Supreme Court candidates are put through the ringer before being appointed?

To milk the truth out of them? (that was for Fen :)

To see where they stand on litmus test issues? Otherwise, why would they go to such lengths to hide their views?

Just don't pretend that SCOTUS nominees don't have personal views or that Presidents don't know and believe that.

Unknown said...

that gov't shall "promote the general Welfare"

This is actually a much higher standard than you imply.

For one thing, all taxes hurt the "welfare" of those whose money you take. So what the government buys with their money better truly be for the general welfare. If AQ attacks us, or we need a new highway, maybe that's okay. Funding abortions does not promote our general warfare, nor does funding the bulk of our federal education or anti-poverty programs.

Under what principle should we still do it?

Anonymous said...

Chicklit, where did I infer they didn't have personal or religious beliefs? They should not be unduly influenced by them, hence the rigorous nomination process.

Scott M said...

Under what principle should we still do it?

Ponderous (panderous?), glacial inertia.

Christopher in MA said...

I can't wait until a Republican is president so that whistle blowing and investigative journalism are given respect again.

And dissent. I can't wait until it's the highest form of patriotism again.

Response from Planned Parenthood. . .

In other words, "we've got our phoney-baloney jobs to protect here!" All this means is that one unlucky scapegoat has joined the Obama economy and the others are being trained in how to better disguise their offerings to Moloch.

Note to Ann Althouse - you ignorned all the stories regarding the viral video of the North Carolina Baptist preacher calling for rounding up "lesbians. . .homosexuals and queers" and putting them behind electric fences until they "die off," which his church posted on their website.

Oh, you poor child. Note to Dave - it's her blog. She can do what she wants. I'd love to see more stories about that POS Holder and how the gutless Weepy Boehner is too afraid of being called a racist to start impeachment proceedings against him, but I'm not bitching about it. Go find another blog.

But you chose to post this story about yet another attempt to discredit an organization that provides health care access to women.

Planned Murderhood provides no "health care access." They exist solely as a eugenics factory.

Pathetic.

Yes. You are.

Sigivald said...

Can one condemn something and be non-judgmental about it at the same time?

Brian Brown said...

Dave said...
But you chose to post this story about yet another attempt to discredit an organization which provides health care access to women.


Abortion is not "health care access"

Goof.

Scott M said...

And dissent. I can't wait until it's the highest form of patriotism again.

It doesn't matter how the dissent pendulum swings. The truth will still remain that the left leave their protest areas looking like junk yards.

traditionalguy said...

Planned Parenthood,the Obama Dems, and Satan do see one thing the same. They both believe that if you are not cheating, then you are not trying.

PP is literally engaged in a War on human babies, also called a War on excess population. But this special operation is being done in its War on Women's Population Division, also called Satan's Own Division.

Dave said...

"Matthew Sablan said...

My first thought when I'm getting scammed, if the scammer has no clear benefit, is that I'm being punked."

NEWS FLASH! If you believe that these sorts of video "prove" anything, you've been scammed.

The attacks on ACORN had nothing to do with voter fraud. It's just an example of one party (or independents in support of that party) trying to gain an electoral advantage over the other party. ACORN registered minority voters. Minority voters tend to vote Democratic. So, ACORN was targeted. If you really had a BS detector you'd know that both Democrats and Republicans do it. But since Nixon in '68 the Republicans seem to be better at it.

Hendu said...

This is why defining the issue as "A woman's right to choose" is such a farce. Exactly what choices are they allowed to make? If the child has a propensity for freckles, or red hair, or brown eyes, does the woman have the right to choose to end the baby's life? As scientists continue to further refine their understanding of the human genome, will she be able to make other choices?

Freeman Hunt said...

This spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America [said] that the organization condemns seeking abortions on the basis of gender

"She later clarified stating, "To be clear, we still fully support seeking abortions on the basis of not missing a semester of school, covering up an affair, ensuring that you can still fit into that rad dress you already bought for a special event, or any other really good reason you can think of to commit a murder."

MayBee said...

Also, how do these people keep getting caught? Don't they have BS detectors? That's what bothers me about these and the voting fraud videos

Imagine what these people might actually see, and you can imagine that their BS detectors have been tuned to a completely different frequency than yours.

People in real life do outrageous things and make outrageous requests. Especially people at the edges of society.

Dave said...

Jay - In some cases abortion is a health care issue and there is no reasonable choice. Most notably when the health or life of the mother is in jeopardy. Also, Planned Parenthood does not provide abortions. However, abortion IS a legal procedure in the United States. PP provides information about that legal procedure.

Christopher in MA said...

If you really had a BS detector, you'd know that both Democrats and Republicans do it. But since Nixon in '68 the Republicans seem to be better at it.

Comedy gold, Dave. Are you here all week? I understand the veal scallopini is divine.

Patrick said...

Maybe Planned Parenthood will come out with a list for acceptable reasons for killing a baby and unacceptable reasons.

James said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Patrick said...

Or at least give us a guiding principle, we can figure out for ourselves when it is okey-dokey.

Anonymous said...

I don't see how there is any fraud here, unless there is a specific law I am unaware that bans medicaid payments for ultrasounds for sex-selective abortions.

Women have ultrasounds all of the time with the intention of keeping a "perfect" baby or aborting a baby that they don't subjectively consider "perfect" for them - whether because of genetic or developmental defects. If medicaid would pay for an ultrasound under those circumstances, I don't see how it could deny payment for sex selection, absent a specific prohibition written into the law.

Matt Sablan said...

"The attacks on ACORN had nothing to do with voter fraud."

-- I thought the attacks on ACORN had to do with them turning a blind eye to child prostitution, not voter fraud?

Patrick said...

OK, Freeman;s beaten me to the point.

James said...

The person is extracting money and services under false pretenses. I'm not even talking about whether it's specifically criminal. As a matter of ethics, PP should not be involved in this. And if Medicaid regulations don't define this as fraud, they should. We as voters should politically oppose welfare programs that permit this fraud of this kind if they do.

That is, defining fraud is a process that is subject to political choice. We need to notice where our tax money is thrown away and vocalize our objection.


What are the false pretenses? Where does she pretend that she intends to carry the pregnancy to full term?

Really?

You think those are equivalent to using taxpayer money to deliberately choose to murder your daughter, because she isn't a boy?


No, actually. I'm a pretty hugely pro-life. But under the theory that abortion should be available at the choice (whim?) of the mother, no different than the mother removing a tumor (since the fetus is not a person), I don't see how the mother electing to have abortion based on the gender, color, size, or shape of the fetus is somehow objectionable.

That is, I think that for someone who is pro-choice, aborting a fetus because of its gender is as objectionable as removing a tumor because of its shape. Unless, of course, fetuses are really persons endowed with a right to life.

But, as to your examples. They may not be fraud in the legal sense, but it certain makes you a giant asshole. You are wasting other people's resources, their time and causing harm in that the job applicant may be losing out on a real job somewhere else and the car salesman lost his "up" or chance to sell a car to someone else.

But it's not a waste. I got to test drive the car. The person got an interview. Analogously, the doctor performed an ultrasound. What the mother chooses to do with that information isn't up to the doctor.

MayBee said...

Can't we use the reasoning behind Obama's decision to have insurance companies pay for women to get free birth control?

It's cheaper to end up having the abortion- even the later abortion- than to actually give birth.
How can that be fraud? The mother will keep the expensive baby if it is a boy, or save the government money if it is a girl.

Matt Sablan said...

"People in real life do outrageous things and make outrageous requests."

-- Maybe so; I have lived a rather sheltered life.

Brennan said...

The attacks on ACORN had nothing to do with voter fraud.

How come it's an "attack" when an ACORN employee blew the whistle on the organizations practices to expose the myth?

Dave said...

Freeman hunt said - "any other really good reason you can think of to commit a murder."

If only it were that simple. Sadly, life can be a bit more complicated. That's the reason many shuddered when the Vatican defended excommunicating a 9 year old rape victim for having an abortion. The pregnancy endangered the child's health both physically and emotionally, but the "murder" rhetoric leaves no wiggle room. Some saw the church's response as appropriate - other's saw it as unthinkably cruel.

Brian Brown said...

Dave said...
Also, Planned Parenthood does not provide abortions.


Dave,
in fact, 98% of PP's services to pregnant women are abortions.

And you can get them right in the PP offices, unlike, say mammograms...

Brennan said...

It's cheaper to end up having the abortion- even the later abortion- than to actually give birth.
How can that be fraud? The mother will keep the expensive baby if it is a boy, or save the government money if it is a girl.


Technically, if using the Obama goggles for lifetime earnings, the girl will cost the government far less and benefit it much more than jobless, oppresssive, future boy.

Brian Brown said...

ACORN registered minority voters

Actually,
ACORN falsified voter registration records. People were found guilty in court of this.

Are you that ignorant, or just lying?

MayBee said...

-- Maybe so; I have lived a rather sheltered life.

Wander down to teen traffic court one day. You will wonder where these people came from.

Freeman Hunt said...

If only it were that simple. Sadly, life can be a bit more complicated. That's the reason many shuddered when the Vatican defended excommunicating a 9 year old rape victim for having an abortion.

Are you under the impression that this is the case for most people seeking abortions? Are you also under the impression that pro-life people couldn't allow for abortions to save the lives of mothers?

Or were you just saying something stupid to make women nod?

MayBee said...

Technically, if using the Obama goggles for lifetime earnings, the girl will cost the government far less and benefit it much more than jobless, oppresssive, future boy.

I don't know...she's going to end up using an awful lot of medicare with her longer life.
And supporting Julia isn't cheap.

Patrick said...

Assuming any law exists against gender selection abortion, I'd dearly love to see Planned Parenthood litigate against it. That way, their clients wouldn't have to lie.

Matt Sablan said...

"Then why did they fire the staff member?"

-- Unwritten Rule #1 of any job: Don't make the boss (or organization) look bad.

Christopher in MA said...

That's the reason many shuddered when the Vatican defended excommunicating a 9 year old rape victim for having an abortion.

It was the mother and doctors involved who were executed, not the child. Were you mistaken or lying?

Christopher in MA said...

Sheesh - excommunicated, not executed.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

Seeing Red said...

---That means that no Planned Parenthood clinic will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selective abortions (Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois).----


I'm surprised there aren't more states.

Scott M said...

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

I just wanted to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

Saint Croix said...

I agree that abortion ought to be safe and legal

Liberals don't care about safety. This is a lie. A simple trip through our abortion history will expose it.

Roe v. Wade itself insists that 1st trimester abortions are to be "free of interference from the state." You could only start to regulate for the mother's health in the 2nd trimester. Blackmun included the doctor's license as an example of a 2nd trimester regulation.

It's absolutely fucking insane. This was the first thing the Supreme Court had to fix about Roe. It was so embarrassing they couldn't (or wouldn't) acknowledge error.

Two years after Roe, the Supreme Court had to quietly pass Connecticut v. Menillo. They had to clarify that, yes, oopsie, of course you can require that the person who performs an abortion has a medical degree.

Two fucking years of insanity. They accidentally legalized all the abortion mills!

Or take the 2nd and 3rd trimester abortion procedure, the D&E. For decades the Supreme Court insisted that D&E abortions were safer than birth. They had no evidence. They're not doctors. They just repeated it like a mantra. "D&E is safer than birth. D&E is safer than birth."

It was false. Utterly, utterly false.

For starters abortion-related deaths are underreported. It's strictly voluntary. You only get an abortion death statistic if the doctor filling out the form puts "abortion" as the cause of death. Write anything else and there's no abortion death statistic.

Actual abortionists knew that birth was safer than D&E.

Why did abortion doctors start doing partial-birth abortion? Because birth is safer! So they induced labor and delivered the baby.

And then killed her outside the womb.

So, yes, partial-birth abortion is safer than D&E, because birth is safer than D&E.

And the same Supreme Court that has been prattling about the safety of the D&E for decades suddenly discovers a whole laundry list of medical dangers from the D&E. For instance, fetal tissue left behind in the uterus.

And yet, despite the health risks to women, we're not allowed to outlaw the D&E. We're not even allowed to require that it takes place in a hospital.

Does any of this stop liberals, or give them doubts? Do they say, "maybe we shouldn't have abortions if it risks the mother's health?" No. They say, let's induce labor and deliver the baby and kill her outside the womb.

Or consider the fucked up opinion of Casey where the Supreme Court gave itself final authority over every abortion health regulation, striking down any one that it thought was "undue." Pennsylvania was so cowed that the abortion indsutry went utterly unregulated there for a couple of decades. Kermit Gosnell and his unlicensed non-doctors killed women and babies. He's now charged with 8 counts of murder.

Where are the liberals who are calling for health regulations on the abortion industry?

They don't fucking exist.

Rusty said...

PP said.


The Constitution also states that gov't shall "promote the general Welfare"...and the elected representatives of the citizens have decided that it is for the good of the general welfare to provide funding for these services.



Nope.
Abortion law falls under the -voting ourselves more and more of the public purse because we can.

promoting the general welfare does not include denying someone a basic right. Which is probably why the little subdividing egg is called a thing rather than a human.

Keep going though.

I Callahan said...

Allowed to abort children who may disagree with you religiously?

Imagine if they ever find the gene that shows if one will grow up to be gay. The entire militant gay movement will switch to pro-life overnight.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

But it's not a waste. I got to test drive the car

Got it. It's all about YOU.

And the answer to my question. You are a dick in real life.

:-D

Dave said...

"I Callahan said...
Allowed to abort children who may disagree with you religiously?

Imagine if they ever find the gene that shows if one will grow up to be gay. The entire militant gay movement will switch to pro-life overnight."

Wow, that one's as old as "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve." and about as logical as that preacher who suggested getting rid of all the "lesbians, homosexuals, and queers" by creating concentration camps and waiting for "them" to die off.

damikesc said...

I also have stated that I am conflicted on the legality of abortion. My personal belief system should not influence law. I have stated that I oppose overturning RoeV Wade, until and If we ever have a better abortion law.

...except overturning it won't make it illegal. It will simply allow states, once again, to make that choice. Several states had it legal before Roe v Wade.

Note to Ann Althouse - You ignored all the stories regarding the viral video of the North Carolina Baptist preacher calling for rounding up "lesbians... homosexuals and queers" and putting them behind electric fences until they "die off"; which his church posted on their website. But you chose to post this story about yet another attempt to discredit an organization which provides health care access to women.

Does anybody's tax money go directly to that church?

No?

Then it is not a relevant comparison.

And what "health care access" do they provide? We already discussed, in detail, the huge mound of nothing PP does.

The attacks on ACORN had nothing to do with voter fraud.

Provided one ignores the numerous convictions of voter fraud associated with ACORN, sure.

Most notably when the health or life of the mother is in jeopardy.

...except it is technically ALWAYS in jeopardy with pregnancy.

Bob Ellison said...

Scott M and Christopher in MA, Planned Parenthood often advises women to go to a hospital. It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

Dave said...

"Jay said...
in fact, 98% of PP's services to pregnant women are abortions.

And you can get them right in the PP offices, unlike, say mammograms..."

FACT CHECK: Abortions account for 3% of PP's services. I incorrectly stated that PP does not provide abortions. They do provide abortions, but no government funds are used. Also, they are not available in all PP offices.

Dave said...

"Freeman Hunt said... Are you under the impression that this is the case for most people seeking abortions? Are you also under the impression that pro-life people couldn't allow for abortions to save the lives of mothers?"

If, as you stated, abortion is murder, then it would be illegal in any case. You chose the term.

Saint Croix said...

Apparently, Planned Parenthood used to offer abortion gift certificates.

I Callahan said...

Wow, that one's as old as "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve." and about as logical as that preacher who suggested getting rid of all the "lesbians, homosexuals, and queers" by creating concentration camps and waiting for "them" to die off.

Huh? I was just making a point. I have no ill feelings toward gays or straights, so I don't know why my main point hit some raw nerve.

The truth hurts, but it's still the truth.

Freeman Hunt said...

If, as you stated, abortion is murder, then it would be illegal in any case. You chose the term.

No, you applied the term in a context, presumably self defense, that I did not.

Matt Sablan said...

"FACT CHECK: Abortions account for 3% of PP's services. I incorrectly stated that PP does not provide abortions. They do provide abortions, but no government funds are used. Also, they are not available in all PP offices."

-- I find it interesting that incorrect statements in defense of certain organizations or news stories are only begrudgingly admitted too, often kicking and screaming. Often, by the way, admitted too by people who then want us to trust every other statement they make about an organization, despite having mislead us in the first place.

Also: Money is fungible. Saying none of these dollars becomes those dollars is a silly game we all play to try and pretend that giving Bob $100 dollars for him to buy X with, and him spending his $100 dollars on booze isn't as raw a deal as it actually is.

Matt Sablan said...

Also, 3% of services could very well also include 98% of PP's services to pregnant women.

So... good to fact check one's own comments, but it doesn't do anything else (alone, you'll need to say more to have any thing to do with the 98% number).

Saint Croix said...

FACT CHECK: Abortions account for 3% of PP's services. I incorrectly stated that PP does not provide abortions. They do provide abortions, but no government funds are used. Also, they are not available in all PP offices.

I can understand why people who have abortions don't want to talk about them. But why do people who provide abortion services not want to talk about them? Why spin it? That 3% is spin.

See New York Times guy for the straight dope.

Roughly 1 out of every 4 abortions take place in a Planned Parenthood clinic. They are the leading provider of abortion services in the U.S.

Do they deny it? Why?

Why spin it?

It's weird how defensive even abortion doctors are about abortion. They dismiss it and deny it and hide it and refuse to talk about what they do. It's like they're ashamed. And even if you didn't want to brag about being the largest abortion provider in the U.S., why would you go to such drastic lengths to spin your numbers and hide your business practices from the general public?

Unknown said...

What Freeman is illustrating with her examples of "reason" to have an abortion is the fact that over 90% of the millions of abortions in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade are done for reasons of convenience.

So womyn, do what you gotta do, but please stop asking me for sympathy or for my money to pay for your mistakes.

Defenseman Emeritus said...

Posts involving Planned Parenthood always make me think of this Onion article:

Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex

Defenseman Emeritus said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
damikesc said...

They do provide abortions, but no government funds are used.

Can you actually verify that?

Any dollar the government gives them is a dollar that they can use to spend on abortion services. If you're budget is $1M and half of it is from the government, you can always claim the things you do that people hate came from the other half.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I'm, adding something to my comment Dami, will repost in a second.

Anonymous said...

State funding of abortions under Medicaid

But in practice, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, even abortions that technically qualify for public funding often don't reimbursed.

 
Researchers from Ibis Reproductive Health, which supports abortion-rights, conducted 50 interviews with abortion providers in 11 states that pay for abortion under Medicaid only under circumstances specified by the Hyde Amendment.

The researchers found that 37 percent of the 1,165 abortions provided for cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment included in the research were ultimately covered by Medicaid


Sorry for the delay, had to take a phone call.

n.n said...

Their response does a disservice to their central feature, which is presumably not abortion but "planned parenthood." They cannot reasonably support the selective valuation of human life, especially in its infancy, when it is most vulnerable, and subject to the whims of others.

It's worth noting just how judgmental the Left can be when they advocate for fulfilling dreams of physical, material, and ego instant gratification, principally through redistributive and retributive change; and how non-judgmental they are when they promote denigration of individual dignity and devaluation of human life. There is a better compromise, but it cannot be selective, and on a whim; and it cannot engender evolutionary dysfunction.

Brian Brown said...


FACT CHECK: Abortions account for 3% of PP's services


What does that have to do with anything?

98% of PP's services to pregnant women are abortions.

They do provide abortions, but no government funds are used. Also, they are not available in all PP offices.

And you can get zero mammograms at any PP office anywhere in America.

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