Memo to Gov. McAuliffe re: abortion clinic regs: Virginia is not a kingdom

Trying to clarify that "the governor is not a king," the spokesman for Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe unwittingly highlights the autocratic nature of the governor's scheme to skirt state law on abortion clinic health and safety.

The law brings abortion clinics in line with reasonable health and safety requirements of similar facilities. But Governor McAuliffe is plotting to put abortion ideology over the rule of law, seeking end-runs around the people's representatives and meanwhile stacking the state health board with abortion partisans.

A year ago May 13, Philadelphia abortion clinic doctor Kermit Gosnell was convicted of murder. Gosnell had openly operated a squalid abortion clinic, let a patient die and butchered babies born alive.

The Grand Jury report cited testimony revealing that when pro-abortion governor Tom Ridge took office, "high-level government officials" decided to discontinue abortion clinic inspections. "There was a concern that if they did routine inspections, that they may find a lot of these facilities didn’t meet [health and safety standards] and then there would be less abortion facilities…."

When abortion politics trumps health and safety, "back alley abortion clinics" and their accompanying horrors thrive. Governor McAuliffe, Virginia is not a kingdom but a commonwealth; enforce our laws.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte explains bill to protect developing babies

Pro-life Senator Kelly Ayotte, who along with Senators Roy Blunt and Marco Rubio led a monthly strategy meeting I had the privilege of participating in during the last session of the Senate, has encouraged her colleagues in the Senate to support a bill to protect developing babies. Her "Dear Colleague" letter below [emphases added] summarizes the case for the bill:

We write to bring to your attention a comprehensive and alarming new study which found that the United States is one of just seven countries worldwide that permits elective abortion more than halfway through pregnancy (beyond 20 weeks). The study, commissioned by the Charlotte Lozier Institute (the education arm of the Susan B. Anthony List) researched  abortion laws in 198 countries and semi-autonomous regions with a population exceeding one million.

Joining the United States in allowing abortions past 20 weeks are China, North Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, and the Netherlands.  Ranked by population size, the United States places second , beaten only by China.

It is time that we in Congress act to bring the United States out of the fringe and closer to international norms on late abortions.  An August 2013 poll conducted by Quinnipiac showed that by a 55% to 30% margin , Americans prefer a 20-week limit to a 24-week limit. Women support this limit by an even larger 60% to 25% margin.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S.1670) -- introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and co-sponsored by 40 senators --would protect unborn children beginning at 20 weeks. Scientific evidence tells us that these developing babies are capable of feeling excruciating pain from abortion procedures, and studies also show that abortions this late in pregnancy are dangerous to a mother 's health.

At 20 weeks, an unborn baby girl can yawn, stretch, and make faces. Mothers receive medical advice to sing to their child at this point in pregnancy, as the unborn girl can hear her mother's voice and begin to establish connections that foster emotional and psychological attachment that confers lifelong benefits for both mother and child.

The U.S. House has already taken action to protect these unborn children and their mothers, approving the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in June 2013 with bipartisan support. Similar legislation has been enacted by over a dozen states and several more are considering it. Our nation's traditional devotion to human rights also calls out for this humane and compassionate response.

We urge you to read the attached study carefully , and we ask that you join us in calling on Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to bring the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1670) up for an immediate floor vote.

Action:

Use the easy form at Freedom2Care's legislative action site to encourage your senators to support this important bill.

Human cloning: Science as tool or master?

In an oddly titled Washington Post editorial, "Stem cells: Good or evil?" the usually clear and readable Post suddenly prefers sterile, technical language ("something called somatic cell nuclear transfer") over the much more readily understood term, human cloning. The editorial suggests that a new process simply involves "creating stem cells cloned from the normal skin cells of adults," when in fact researchers actually cloned and killed living human embryos like utilitarian lab rats.
Gallup polling shows that 83 percent of Americans oppose human cloning; hence the obfuscation.
Several decades of grant-seeking researchers' scandalous propaganda and hundreds of millions of research dollars thrown at embryo-destructive research have produced zero cures. Yet the Post persists in promoting the hype, asserting that human cloning will at long last produce "extraordinary new treatments." Yes, we've heard it all before--"cures of biblical proportion," paraplegics "leaping out of wheelchairs." Following this yellow brick road unfortunately diverts precious funds away from ethically non-controversial and proven effective non-destructive stem cell research.
The editorial also ignores the exploitation of and health risks posed to egg donors, especially poor women, by the hormonal harvesting procedures required for human cloning. Moreover, if human cloning is technically perfected, no law will prevent rogue scientists from cloning a baby, along with potential horrific physical defects and unspeakable psychological trauma.
Science is a powerful tool that can serve us well within ethical boundaries and critical scrutiny. Without such boundaries and scrutiny, we will become its victims--and in the case of cloned human beings, its slaves.

Study: Marijuana use causes brain dysfunction. Hey, man...whoa. Dys-what?

To the dismay of pot smokers who are still able to read to the study, The Journal of Neuroscience tamps out the fast-spreading notion that casual marijuana use does no harm. From the news report in the Washington Post:

A study in The Journal of Neuroscience says even casual marijuana smokers showed significant abnormalities in two vital brain regions important in motivation and emotion.

“Some of these people only used marijuana to get high once or twice a week,” said co-author Hans Breiter, quoted in Northwestern University’s Science Newsline. Breiter hailed the study as the first to analyze the effects of light marijuana use. “People think a little recreational use shouldn’t cause a problem, if someone is doing OK with work or school,” he said. “Our data directly says this is not the case. 

“This study raises a strong challenge to the idea that casual marijuana use isn’t associated with bad consequences,” he added.

Washington and Colorado have legalized the drug for recreational use, and 21 states and the District of Columbia permit medical marijuana use. Turns out the Rocky Mountain high may lower cognitive function. But if the study is correct, it may be too late now for Coloradans and Washingtonians to figure that out.

Media misses human cloning opposition, but reasons abound

The Washington Post headline, "Cloning advance using stem cells from human adult reopens ethical questions," suggested investigative insight into the controversy. Yet somehow the Post failed to find a single opponent of human cloning to quote, only quoting the researchers who stand to profit from the embryo-destroying human cloning experiments.

That's odd, since Gallup polling reveals that fully 83 percent of Americans oppose human cloning, which means the reporter literally could have stepped outside the Post enclave and found myriad opponents on the street to interview.

Opponents include scores of ethically concerned citizens besides "religious groups" as the article suggests. Some of the 83 percent of Americans who oppose human cloning reject it because no human being should be created simply for the use of someone else. Advocates on both left and right oppose human cloning because it would require huge numbers of eggs taken from exploited women through dangerous procedures. My colleague Jennifer Lahl has documented these dangers in the film, Eggsploitation.

Others realize that no researcher's promise and no federal law could ever stop rogue scientists in the US or anywhere in the world from bringing a cloned human embryo to birth. That would risk horrific abnormalities and incur unspeakable psychological harm on the cloned baby created not as an original, but as a copy, not out of a mother and father's love, but out of scientific experimentation.

Several decades of highly paid researchers' hype about embryo-destructive research have produced none of the promised cures, all the while siphoning precious funds from proven effective adult stem cell research and other non-controversial stem cell methods. Instead of parroting the hype of invested researchers, offer readers a critical, even-handed look at this controversy that threatens to undermine the core ethical safeguards of our humanity.