an After abortion

REAL, CONFIDENTIAL, FREE, NON-JUDGMENTAL HELP TO AVOID ABORTION, FROM MANY PLACES:
3,400 confidential and totally free groups to call and go to in the U.S...1,400 outside the U.S. . . . 98 of these in Canada.
Free, financial help given to women and families in need.More help given to women, families.
Helping with mortgage payments and more.More help.
The $1,950 need has been met!CPCs help women with groceries, clothing, cribs, "safe haven" places.
Help for those whose babies haveDown Syndrome and Other Birth Defects.
CALL 1-888-510-BABY or click on the picture on the left, if you gave birth or are about to and can't care for your baby, to give your baby to a worker at a nearby hospital (some states also include police stations or fire stations), NO QUESTIONS ASKED. YOU WON'T GET IN ANY TROUBLE or even have to tell your name; Safehaven people will help the baby be adopted and cared for.

Tuesday, November 2, 2004

Shredding The Myths about Abortion’s “Benefits” to Women


The first 9 myths shredded were Q&A’s taken literally from Planned Parenthood’s webpage, “Choosing Abortion - Questions And Answers.” We posted extensive research and case history evidence showing that their answers are just plain wrong.

We conclude here discussing the truths about abortion’s devastating effects on the moms, including specific medical research studies, personal stories and legal cases, including updates on the two legal motions to overturn Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

For the final 6 myths, we’re covering those that are the general throwout phrases made by abortion rights supporters everywhere, not just Planned Parenthood.

Myth #15 (of 15):
15. “My reproductive rights and the ‘right to privacy’ are guaranteed by the Constitution.”
Actually, they're not. Not even mentioned in the Constitution or Declaration or Federalist Papers or Amendments.
“The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy”
was admitted in writing by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, but the High Court created one (and so-called "reproductive rights") anyway. That’s a big difference.

Not to mention the fact that the Supreme Court is not supposed to create or establish rights. That is the purview of the Constitution and after that, only is to be done through the Amendment process.

Instead we have nine individual people creating rights and changing the Constitution instead of a two-thirds majority of both the House of Representatives and the Senate and also 75% (or 38) of the states.

That's a HUGE difference. This is why the derogatory label "activist judges" fits, I'm sorry to say, and did at least as far back as Roe v. Wade. It now includes the judges who blocked the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act (see the polls at the very end as to how well that went over with the vast majority of Americans) as well as refers to the litmus test exemplified by Senate Judiciary Committee's devious behavior.

[BTW, Kerry encourages this flaunting of the U.S. Constitution: he said on national TV in his debate that he would only pick Supreme Court justices who'd vote in favor of the original Roe v. Wade decision. Translated: Kerry supports only judges who'll ignore and categorically dismiss all of the 5,000+ pages of new legal and legally valid evidence discussed and linked to below. That's not what they teach you in "Lawyer School."]

It's worth repeating: nine people, versus 290 Congressmen, about 67 Senators, and the state legislatures of 38 states.

Something is rotten, and it ain't in Denmark. "Checks and balances? We don't need no stinkin' checks and balances!"

I find it fascinating that those objecting the most to the power given to the Federal Government under such things as The Patriot Act, are actually unaware of the vast "benefits" they enjoy as a result of the rampant expansion of federal power that occurred much prior to Roe v. Wade but was exemplified by that decision:
"The Supreme Court gained dominance through its misuse of the Fourteenth Amendment...It was the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, which, as construed by the Supreme Court, so radically changed the division of powers [among the three branches of U.S. government], that it is fairly described as the 'second Constitution.'...[And t]he Supreme Court could not have achieved dominance if Congress had not acquiesced...'Only in this century did it begin to be commonplace to regard the justices of the Supreme Court as the 'guardians' of the Constitution, as though only they...had this charge...The Framers [of the Constitution] knew better."
Want proof of this?
"Congress has authority, under Article III, Section 2, of the Constitution, to remove a class of cases, such as those dealing with abortion or school prayer, from the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and from the trial and appellate jurisdiction of the lower federal courts. If Congress did so, for example, that would not overrule Roe v. Wade. But state courts would be free to decide the issue themselves without fear of review by the Supreme Court."
So, Congress has had the power all along to remove the cases on abortion from the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. They still have the power. They refuse to exercise it, thinking, incorrectly, that the majority of us out here are pro-choice.

(I'll post at the end of this discussion 33 polls from 1984 through 2004 that show the Pro-Life shift is true and getting truer all the time.)

All the above discussion/quotes are from a 35-year Constitutional lawyer and law professor from University of Notre Dame, Indiana. His explanation is too long to quote here or even to paraphrase. Constitutional lawyers (at least good ones) are not known for "sound bites," but then again, I don't know if any lawyers are. His book is well-worth reading though (for pro-life and pro-choice folks alike, even though it is definitely pro-life) as it's written in a style that explains it so we common folk really can follow. For the parts about the law and the governmental issues, read pages 11 through 59 at least (there's more, but this references the above quotes).

Charlie Rice also happens to be my first-cousin-once-removed, but I didn't find out about his book or his involvement in Constitutional law and pro-life issues as such until long after I stopped being silent about my abortion grief and started becoming involved in all this in December 2002. You can't even imagine my surprise. In my opinion, God sure works in the strangest ways. The last time I saw Charlie before then, I was in diapers.

Methinks it's time to write our Senators and Representatives, include this little quote above about Congress's ability to do what it's supposed to do (put a "check and balance" on the Supreme Court), reference the book it's from (the title, by the way, is The Winning Side: Questions on Living the Culture of Life), and tell them we'd very much appreciate it if no more women would be so harmed and no more babies, too, thanks. And remind them of that hearing that some Senators were supposed to be attending last March with the post-abortive women's testimonies on the harm they personally suffered, that we posted about here.

On Sept. 14, 2004, the overturning of Roe v. Wade moved one step closer to the Supreme Court. As expected, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied Norma McCorvey’s (formerly "Jane Roe" of this case) motion. But Norma has refiled for rehearing with the appellate court, also as expected. We in the Operation Outcry: Silent No More group knew this would be the chain of events when the motion was first filed on June 17, 2003.

On several occasions, the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned its own precedents using Rule 60(b)(5) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, such as in the 1997 decision of Agostini v. Felton, which overturned a 12-year decision. In that case, the party in McCorvey’s position lost in all of the lower courts before winning at the Supreme Court.

Some courts have reversed themselves after as much as 41 years in some Rule 60 cases.

And Brown v. Board of Education (1954) overturned a 58-year-old high court precedent, and was considered "The landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision overruling the constitutionality of the 'separate but equal' doctrine that had been the legal basis for racial segregation of the nation's public schools."
"Since the turn of the 20th century, the southern states had had a legal justification for requiring black students to attend segregated schools. The Supreme Court's 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld segregated railroad car seating in Louisiana on the grounds that 'equal but separate' seating did not violate the black passengers' rights to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. For half a century, this near-unanimous decision (only one justice dissented) served as the legal grounds for racial segregation in virtually all areas of southern life, including education."
One more time, with gusto: "...overruling the constitutionality...

Now, with that in mind, here’s a long quote from 5th Circuit Appellate Judge Edith Jones about the motion to overturn Roe v. Wade:
"Essentially, the [lower] district court concluded that a 30-year delay, regardless of the circumstances, is too long as a matter of law. We disagree. ... Accordingly, the district court erred in initially determining that the 30-year delay was ‘unreasonable’ without examining the facts and circumstances of this particular case.

…If courts were to delve into the facts underlying Roe's balancing scheme with present-day knowledge, they might conclude that the woman's 'choice' is far more risky and less beneficial, and the child's sentience far more advanced, than the Roe court knew…

“One may fervently hope that the Court will someday acknowledge such developments and re-evaluate Roe…accordingly. That the court’s constitutional decisionmaking leaves our nation in a position of willful blindness to evolving knowledge should trouble any dispassionate observer not only about the abortion decisions, but about a number of other areas in which the Court unhesitatingly steps into the realm of social policy under the guise of constitutional adjudication.”
"The facts", the Fifth Circuit Appellate Court calls the over 5,000 pages of evidence (that webpage once posted a tiny fraction of the contents of our legal affidavits, but a summary of the effort's ongoing influence is described here).

There are three major arguments in the motion to overturn:
  1. The affidavits of Norma McCorvey and the 1,000+ women are the largest body of sworn evidence in the world on the negative effects of abortion on women. It’s over one thousand times more evidence from women than was heard in Roe v. Wade.

  2. The unanswered question in Roe, “When does human life begin?” was treated as a philosophical question back then. Since then, an explosion of scientific evidence (and testimonies of 8 world-renowned scientists) on human life conclusively answers the question that life begins at conception. From the Report of the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee [S-158], 97th Congress, first session, by John East (1981):
    "In addressing a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on April 23-24, 1981, Dr. Richard V. Jaynes stated: ‘To say that the beginning of human life cannot be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous’ (see East, 1981). Those hearings were carried out to determine the question of when human life begins. Accompanying Dr. Jaynes that day was a group of internationally known geneticists and biologists who conclusively reiterated that life begins at conception—and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony. One of those giving testimony during that hearing was Landrum Shettles, often called the ‘father of in vitro fertilization.’ Dr. Shettles noted: ‘Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind’ (East, 1981)."
    Shettles also testified on the Supreme Court ruling in "Roe v. Wade," saying, "To deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for legalizing abortion."

    "Among the scientists, Dr. Micheline Mathews-Roth of Harvard Medical School gave a confirming testimony, supported by references from more than twenty embryology and other medical textbooks, that human life began at conception. Dr. Jerome Lejeune, who discovered the genetic cause of Down Syndrome, told the lawmakers: ‘To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion…it is plain experimental evidence.’ He repeated the same before the Louisiana Legislature's House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice on June 7, 1990."
    Other scientists also testified as follows:

    • Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman of the Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."
    • Keith L. Moore (in his well-known med-school textbook): "The cell (a single-celled zygote) results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of human life." (The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 2nd Ed., 1977).
    • Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania: "I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception . . . I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life. I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty . . . is not a human being. This is human life at every stage . . ."
    • Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School: "The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter- the beginning is conception."

  3. The state of Texas in 1999 enacted a law in which it agreed to provide for any woman’s unwanted child from the child’s birth to 18 years of age with no questions asked. Legally, because the state has agreed to take responsibility for all unwanted children, women should no longer be forced to dispose of “unwanted” children by ending a human life. Forty states have similar SafeHaven/Baby Moses laws.
These same arguments apply in the motion to overturn Doe v. Bolton (the companion case to Roe v. Wade, which defined “mother’s health” so loosely as to allow abortion on demand for any reason at any time up until the date of delivery).

There is something that you still can do. Those 5,000 pages of evidence include "Friend of the Court" (FOC) petitions, and there’s still time to add yours. Anyone can do it, there's no need to be a lawyer, and it only costs a postage stamp. The petition simply means that you join with thousands across the nation who've put it into legal evidence that we agree with this statement:
"It is not in the human or legal interest of any mother to kill her own child. A mother's true interest is in her child's life and her relationship with her child. Roe v. Wade should be overturned."
Men and women over 18 can sign. You can ask to be known only by initials or a pseudonym. You won’t appear in any court at any time. You don't need to have the petition notarized.

Affidavits, however, are ONLY from those who've had an abortion. You won’t be identified publicly if you so choose, so no one will know if you do this. While the affidavits must be notarized, the notaries don't need to know what you're signing, only that it is you signing it. You just cover up the content when the notary signs it. We even have a pro-life notary here in CT who will do it for free.

All affidavits and FOC petitions, even submitted right up until the case goes before the U.S. Supreme Court, will still be helpful to the motion's success…As we shred the myths of abortion’s benefits to women, this will be the beginning of the end of legalized abortion and its harm to women, babies and yes, even to men, as well as the end of the need for abortion.


A final note: In comments for one of the early posts, someone wrote:
"Someone could sue [Planned Parenthood] in California under the law that that guy is suing Nike under: false-advertising laws."
I replied:
Someone already has sued another abortion provider: "First U.S. Abortion-Breast Cancer Lawsuit Settled." The teenager "sued her abortion provider, Charles Benjamin, for neglecting to warn her about the physical and emotional risks of abortion" and they settled out of court.

"Karen Malec, the [ABC] coalition's president, declared, 'This settlement will teach the medical establishment that it can no longer profit by keeping women in the dark about the breast cancer risk. This case also establishes that abortion providers can be sued for battery if the abortion provider performs no parental consent abortions on minors from neighboring states (with parental consent statutes), even if the state where the abortion is performed does not have a parental consent statute.'"
[BTW, Kerry implied in the debate that Bush favored parental consent laws that would allow a rapist/incestuous male parent to know or have influence over the very daughter he'd raped and made pregnant. Not true. Bush supports parental consent law that includes just such an exception.]

SUMMARY of PRO-LIFE-Leaning POLLS, as of 9/2004 (direct quotes/paraphrases):

Aug. 1984, Wirthlin National Poll: 80% of California voters support some form of parental consent law.

Jan. 1988, Wirthlin National Poll: 78% strongly agree that women who have had abortions experience emotional trauma, such as grief and regret. Source book by Rachel MacNair.

March 27-291989, Boston Globe National Poll: 72% believe abortion should be illegal if a mother wants an abortion but the father wants the baby. Only 14% said it should be legal.

In that same Boston Globe poll: 72% of Americans said they would allow abortion in no circumstances or limit abortion to the circumstances provided for in the original [Roe v. Wade] Supreme Court ruling. According to the Guttmacher survey, those circumstances account for only 7% of the 1.5 million abortions performed annually. Only 25% said that abortion should be legal in all circumstances, 19% said in no circumstances and 53% believed that abortion should be legal only in certain circumstances.

1980's decade survey, Connecticut Mutual Life Public Opinion Poll on Abortion: 65% of those polled agreed that "...abortion is morally wrong." [National Survey: American Values in the 80's. Chapter Three: "The New Political Issues: Morality in America." Table 36, "Factors Affecting Perceived Morality of Abortion."]

1992, Wirthlin National Poll: 80% of Americans support requiring parental notification before an abortion is performed on a girl under age 18. Only 20% opposed it.

1996, New York Times/CBS News Poll: 56% of those aged 18 to 29 agree that "abortion is the same thing as murdering a child."

1996, Tarrance Group Poll: 55% of Democrats and 65% of those identifying themselves as pro-choice supported the Partial Birth Abortion Ban.

1996, Gallup Poll: 71% of American voters favored a law criminalizing Partial-Birth Abortion.

1997, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: Women supported the PBA Ban by 56%; Republicans, Democrats, and Independents supported it by 55, 54, and 56%, respectively.

1998, New York Times/CBS News Poll: 78% of Americans support parental CONSENT before an abortion is performed on a girl under age 18, and even more supported parental NOTIFICATION. 17% opposed it.

5/2000, L.A.Times poll: 57% of Americans believed that “Abortion is an act of murder.”

8/2001, CNN/Gallup/USA Today Poll: 60% said abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances. 38% said it should legal in all or most circumstances.

8/2001, CNN/Gallup/USA Today Poll: 60% approved of President Bush’s decision to not allow the government to fund embryonic stem cell research that would destroy additional embryos in the future. 34% disapproved. Of those disapproving, 56% did so because the ban was not strict enough. Only 36% of those disapproving thought it was too strict.

11/2002, WWW.VOTE.COM Poll: With 57,071 votes cast, 82% said YES, “Congress Should Make It A Federal Crime To Harm A Fetus During An Assault On A Pregnant Woman.”

11/2002, WWW.VOTE.COM: With 61,890 votes cast, 83% (51,509 people) voted Yes, “Congress Should Pass A Ban On Partial Birth Abortions.”

1/15/03, USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll: 70% of Americans favor “a law that would make it illegal to perform a specific abortion procedure conducted in the last six months of pregnancy known as a ‘partial birth abortion,’ except in cases necessary to save the life of the mother.” [1,002 adults polled]

Jan. 10-12, 2003, CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll: 60% of 1,002 adults nationwide said that “abortions should be legal under only a few circumstances, OR illegal in all circumstances.”

1/16/03, Wirthlin Worldwide Poll: 68% of 1,000 randomly surveyed adults said they were "in favor of legal protection for unborn children, in light of medical advances that reveal the unborn child's body and facial features in detail."

66% said they favored nominees to the Supreme Court ''who would uphold laws that restore legal protection to unborn children.''

Jan. 19-21, 2003, CBS News/New York Times Poll: 60% of 814 adults nationwide felt that abortion should be available but under stricter limits than it is now, OR abortion should not be permitted.” Among people aged 18 to 29, only 39% felt that abortion should be generally available to those who want it (that’s down from 48% in 1993).

Jan.30-Feb. 2, 2003, Los Angeles Times Poll: 56% of women and 59% of men (total was 1,385 adults nationwide) “oppose a law which would make it illegal to perform a specific abortion procedure conduct in the last six months of a women’s pregnancy known as a partial-birth abortion, except in cases necessary to save the life of the mother.” (57% overall opposed)

5/2003, Harvard University Poll: 74% of college students believe that abortion should be illegal under all or most circumstances. [“26% of undergraduates believe abortion should be legal under all circumstances, compared to 23% of the general population.”]

June 2001-2003, Center for Advancement of Women Survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates: 51% of 3,329 women want abortion banned entirely or limited to cases of rape, incest or where the mother's life is threatened. [This was commissioned by former Planned Parenthood president Faye Wattleton]

June, 2003, Newsweek Poll: 58% said either “Life begins at conception” or that it begins “when an embryo is implanted in the woman’s uterus.”

July 15-16, 2003, Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll: 55% of 900 registered voters nationwide said they “believe that human life begins at conception.”

79% of those same people said Yes, “If a violent physical attack on a pregnant woman leads to the death of her unborn child…prosecutors should be able to charge the attacker with murder for killing the fetus?”

July 16-20, 2003, ABC News Poll: 62% of 1,027 adults nationwide said “…the late-term abortion procedure known as dilation and extraction, or partial-birth abortion, should be illegal.”

July 2003, CBS News: 62% of Abortion should be either not permitted or available under stricter limits than it is now.”

10/2003: Gallup-CNN-USA Today poll: Among "young adults" (age 18-29), the PBA ban is favored by 77% (19% were opposed) while among the older groups, 68% supported it (25% were opposed).

Aug. 1-Aug. 29, 2003, Gallup Youth Survey: Among teens (aged 13 to 17), 72% don’t consider abortion to be a morally acceptable choice and oppose the use of abortion in most circumstances. Only 26% find abortion morally acceptable. 79% of teens said abortions should be illegal always OR should be legal only under certain circumstances (32% and 47%, respectively). Only 19% say abortion should always be legal. This survey is “conducted via an Internet methodology provided by Knowledge Networks, using an online research panel [of 517 respondents, aged 13 to 17]…designed to be representative of the entire U.S. population.”

December 15-17, 2003 , Zogby Poll/O'Leary Report: 52% “agreed with the statement ‘Abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter?’"

Jan. 2-18, 2004, NEWSWEEK Gen Next Poll: “Do you agree or disagree: Abortion should be banned except in the case of pregnancies that result from rape or incest, or in any pregnancy that might threaten the life of the mother.” The Gen Next Poll portion which interviewed 350 registered voters aged 18 to 29, finding that 50% agreed and 49% disagreed. What it doesn’t tell us is why they disagreed. Some could have disagreed because they think abortion should never be allowed in any case. Notice how they don’t phrase the question to allow that answer?

April 24, 2004: Zogby International: “On the eve of the [March for Choice April 25, 2004], in a poll of 1,209 individuals,” 56% of respondents took a pro-life posture …18% said abortion should never be legal, another 15% said legal only when the life of the mother is in danger, while another 23% said legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or incest…Only 42%…agreed with one of the following statements: legal for any reason in the first three months (25%), legal for any reason during the first six months (4%), or legal for any reason at any time during the woman's pregnancy (13%). ..Only one in eight Americans supports abortion-on-demand…

49.1% self-identify as pro-life; 45.3% say they are "pro-choice." 72.1% of Hispanics consider themselves pro-life versus 26.6% who consider themselves pro-choice. Of all 18-29 year-olds, 51.6% identified as pro-life as against only 41.8% pro-choice.” Also found here.

7/2004, non-partisan Pace University/Rock the Vote survey: In a nationwide study of first-time voters, defined as "voters who registered after the 2000 presidential election," 41% believe "abortion should be legal only in the most extreme cases, such as to save the life of the mother, incest, or rape"; 13% think "all abortions should be made illegal," 21% think "abortions should be legal and generally available" and 23% feel "regulation of abortion is necessary, although it should remain legal in many circumstances". In total, 44% of new voters are pro-choice while 54% are more pro-life. Among first-time Latino voters, pro-lifers outnumber pro-choicers 61% to 34%; among blacks, the pro-lifers are 59%, while prochoicers are 42%.

11/1/2004, WWW.VOTE.COM: With 23,358 votes cast, 81% (18,868 people) voted No, “A Federal Judge Was Not Right to Block the Partial Birth Abortion Ban.”

[By the way, “Dick Morris, the President of Vote.com, was President Clinton's chief strategist and advisor in the 1996 campaign.”]




Now that the "Shredding the Myths" series is done, hopefully soon we'll post a single link to it as a whole so that it’s more easily accessible, hopefully on the right sidebar. Others have suggested putting it into a PowerPoint presentation on a CD for people to purchase, but we have to figure out the technology of that!

First, I want to incorporate the many contributions of Christina Dunigan who has a great deal of supporting documentation and evidence.

For now, all 15 myths shredded can be found as follows:
Shredding the Myths about Abortion’s "Benefits" to Women

posted by Annie @ 5:30 AM

0 comment(s): (ANONYMOUS ok -but mind our rules, please)                                      << HOME