Thursday, January 4, 2018

Abortion Clinic That Has Killed Babies in Abortions Since 1989 Now Does Life-Affirming Medicine

 STATE   DAVE ANDRUSKO   JAN 3, 2018   |   5:31PM    WASHINGTON, DC
I’ve read other stories by the Washington Post’s Julie Zauzmer but to be honest I don’t recall anything particularly pro or con about Zauzmer who is a religion reporter for the Post.
The first time I read her New Year’s Day story, “In Manassas, a closed abortion clinic made new,” I was not entirely sure how I felt.
But after re-reading the story more closely this morning, I can say, with a few caveats in mind, I was very encouraged by her sympathetic account of the Mother of Mercy Free Medical Clinic in Manassas, Virginia, which is about an hour south and west of Washington, DC.
Pro-lifers had prayed for years outside Amethyst Health Center for Women, (described by Zauzmer as “formerly Manassas’s and Prince William County’s only abortion clinic”) which closed up when the 76-year-old owner retired last year. Pro-abortionists had hated them not just for their witnessing to abortion-minded women but also for having a crisis pregnancy center nearby. They went apoplectic when the Archdiocese of Arlington purchased the Amethyst Health Center clinic.
Now unborn babies are no longer torn to shreds there. It is “now a general-purpose health clinic for uninsured patients in Northern Virginia” run by volunteers.
The beginning of the story is about the politics of the changeover—the typical pro-abortion grousing—but after a while we learn just what a blessing Mother of Mercy Free Medical Clinic has become.
Many of the people they serve are Latinos, half of whom suffer from diabetes. They also have many other medical problems and, lacking health insurance, such as is Arlina Flores-Roxas situation, fear they can’t afford necessary care and medicines.
But then nurse practitioner Lori McLean told Flores-Roxas, whose hands hurt so much she is left whimpering, “That’s okay. It’ll be taken care of.
“Flores-Roxas’s face lit up,” Zauzmer writes. “‘Oh, thank you so much,’ she said. On her way out the door, she gave McLean a hug.”
Few, if any patients, know this used to be an abortion clinic which ended the lives of 1,200 unborn babies a year.
But the nurses and translators — who volunteer their time to make the entirely free clinic operate — know. “Everyone was so keenly aware of that, which so energized the community,” Scott Ross [the family medicine doctor] said. “Something good would be coming forth from a place where evil had occurred.”
Right now, the hours are limited, but there are plans to try to enlist other volunteer providers to help out and increase the hours it is open. But Ross, “who is a doctor for Novant Health during the rest of the week, [who] serves as medical director at the new Catholic Charities clinic,” also wants “to strike more agreements with neighboring medical providers so that patients who need more help than what the free clinic can provide can access care.”
The transformation is just stunning. A place of blood and misery morphed into a medical refuge largely for recent immigrants lacking health insurance. The story ends beautifully beginning with Liliana Ramirez-Venegas, who served as a translator for one of the patients:
Ramirez-Venegas, a teacher who immigrated from Colombia just like Juan Perez, said she heard about this clinic at her parish and wanted to help out. She tells Perez that all staff members are volunteers. Again, he says, “Wow.”
Ross rushes past. Between examining a woman with a nasty undiagnosed skin condition that’s causing open sores up and down her torso, and checking on a concerned father of eight children who lost his job and the function in his foot when a hydraulic hammer fell on him, the doctor pauses to quote the verse from Scripture that he thinks about in this place.
It’s from Revelation: “Behold, I make all things new.”
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.

Woman Wants to Abort Her 27-Week-Old Unborn Child Just Because the Baby’s Disabled

 INTERNATIONAL   MICAIAH BILGER   JAN 3, 2018   |   4:08PM    NEW DELHI, INDIA
An Indian woman who is 27-weeks pregnant with her unborn baby recently asked a court to let her abort her viable, late-term baby because of a disability.
On Dec. 26, the woman, Shaikh Ayesha Khatoon, told the Bombay High Court that her unborn baby has heart, brain and gastrointestinal anomalies, and she wants an abortion, The Hindu reports. She was 27 weeks and four days pregnant on that date, far past the point of viability, according to the report.
Abortions are illegal after 20 weeks of pregnancy in India. However, women or their families increasingly have been petitioning the high court for permission to abort their unborn babies after the limit, especially in cases involving fetal abnormalities or sexual assault.
At 20 weeks, an unborn baby already is fully formed and close to the point of viability (about 22-23 weeks). Later-term abortions also are risky and can be deadly for the mother.
In the latest case, the court directed a medical board at J.J. Hospital to examine the woman’s physical and mental health. Their medical report to the high court is due Jan. 8, according to the report.
“Since November last year, over 10 women have moved the Bombay High Court seeking permission to terminate their foetuses, which have crossed the 20-week abortion limit,” according to the report.
The court allowed many of the women to abort their unborn babies with disabilities. In the fall, the Supreme Court of India granted an exception for a woman whose unborn baby had potentially fatal kidney problems. She was 31 weeks pregnant.
In August, the high court gave another Mumbai-area woman permission to abort her unborn baby at 26 weeks after doctors said the baby had a potentially fatal disorder. Doctors at J.J. Hospital who examined the woman and her unborn baby said the baby did not have a skull and probably would not survive, according to the Indian Express. The doctors also said the woman was experiencing “immense mental agony.”
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However, in early 2017, the high court did uphold the right to life for an unborn baby diagnosed with Down syndrome. The mother was 26 weeks pregnant when she requested the abortion.
“It is sad that the child may suffer from physical and mental challenges and it’s unfortunate for the mother but we can’t allow an abortion…We have a life in our hands,” the court said in its February 2017 ruling.
The judicial decisions in such cases appear to rest heavily on the likelihood of the unborn baby dying from his/her condition soon before or after birth. However, it should not matter whether the baby has a fatal defect; the unborn baby is a valuable human being who deserves protection and care until their natural death.
Most countries prohibit late-term abortions on viable, unborn babies. The United States and Canada are among the few exceptions.
LifeNews Note: Image below is of an unborn baby at 27 weeks.

Recalling Antonin Scalia: “I Am Sure Abortion is Not Protected by the Constitution”

 OPINION   PAUL STARK   JAN 3, 2018   |   6:00PM    WASHINGTON, DC
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia believed that the role of the Court is to faithfully interpret and apply the law as it actually is—not as the Court wants it to be. Making law and policy is the job of the elected branches of government. Judges, he insisted, should not be legislators.
That’s why Scalia took the position he did on abortion and the Constitution. The Constitution simply does not require, as the Court mistakenly ruled in Roe v. Wade (1973), a nationwide policy of abortion on demand. In his dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which upheld the “central holding” of Roe, Scalia explained:
The issue is whether [abortion] is a liberty protected by the Constitution of the United States. I am sure it is not. I reach that conclusion … for the same reason I reach the conclusion that bigamy is not constitutionally protected—because of two simple facts: (1) the Constitution says absolutely nothing about it, and (2) the long-standing traditions of American society have permitted it to be legally proscribed.
Therefore, Scalia concluded, “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”
Dissenting in Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), which struck down a state law banning partial-birth abortion, Scalia wrote:
The notion that the Constitution of the United States, designed, among other things, “to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility … and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” prohibits the States from simply banning this visibly brutal means of eliminating our half-born posterity is quite simply absurd.
Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990) dealt with the details of Minnesota’s parental notification law. In a complicated and divided outcome, the Court upheld the law as long as there is a judicial bypass option (Scalia would have upheld the law regardless). Scalia noted:
One will search in vain the document we are supposed to be construing for text that provides the basis for the argument over these distinctions; and will find in our society’s tradition regarding abortion no hint that the distinctions are constitutionally relevant, much less any indication how a constitutional argument about them ought to be resolved. The random and unpredictable results of our consequently unchanneled individual views make it increasingly evident, Term after Term, that the tools for this job are not to be found in the lawyer’s—and hence not in the judge’s—workbox. I continue to dissent from this enterprise of devising an Abortion Code, and from the illusion that we have authority to do so.
Nor does anything in the Constitution prevent states from prohibiting assisted suicide or protecting against the dehydration and starvation of medically vulnerable patients. In Cruzan v. Missouri Department of Health (1990), Scalia wrote:
American law has always accorded the State the power to prevent, by force if necessary, suicide … [T]he point at which life becomes “worthless,” and the point at which the means necessary to preserve it become “extraordinary” or “inappropriate,” are neither set forth in the Constitution nor known to the nine Justices of this Court any better than they are known to nine people picked at random from the Kansas City telephone directory.
Scalia was part of the unanimous decisions in Vacco v. Quill and Washington v. Glucksberg(1997), which held that there is no right to assisted suicide. In his dissenting opinion in Gonzales v. Oregon (2006), Scalia argued that the Attorney General is allowed, under federal law, to prevent the use of drugs in Oregon for assisted suicide:
Unless we are to repudiate a long and well-established principle of our jurisprudence, using the federal commerce power to prevent assisted suicide is unquestionably permissible. … If the term “legitimate medical purpose” has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death.
In Roe v. Wade and subsequent decisions, the Court usurped the authority of the American people and their elected representatives to determine abortion policy—and 58 million abortions have been the result. Some people want the Court to do the same with assisted suicide.
To prevent that from happening—and to reverse Roe, allowing for greater protection for unborn children and their mothers—we desperately need more Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia.
LifeNews.com Note: Paul Stark is a member of the staff of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, a statewide pro-life group.

Two Women Planned to Have Abortions, But Something Changed Their Minds

 NATIONAL   GAYLE IRWIN   JAN 3, 2018   |   8:08PM    WASHINGTON, DC
Thirty-one-year-old Tosha contacted True Care Women’s Resource Center in Casper, Wyo., stating her intention to abort. Meeting with a patient advocate, she explained her reasons.
“My second pregnancy was difficult, and my baby ended up with a heart defect and other abnormalities,” Tosha said. “He’s had four heart surgeries. I can’t go through that agony again. I had to quit my job to be with him, and all the medical bills have been difficult to pay.”
Tosha was too early for an ultrasound and refused the opportunity to have one the following week. The nurse suggested she speak to a doctor regarding the chances of her current unborn child having the same medical issues—or any at all.
She left still planning to abort. During a medical follow-up call a week later, True Care’s nurse learned that Tosha had not terminated her pregnancy. She had followed the nurse’s advice and talked with a physician.
“May I still have an ultrasound?” Tosha inquired.
Her boyfriend was with her when she came to her appointment. Excited to see their 7-week-old on the screen, the couple left planning to parent.
Pregnancy centers matter. True Care made all the difference for Tosha.
The same goes for Heidi, a 45-year-old who discovered the center online. Although she said she was undecided, she was leaning toward abortion because of her age and the fact she was single.
Heidi told the advocate she had recently moved to the community and felt alone. Her boyfriend had left her, and she didn’t have enough money to return to her hometown. She admitted she was scared.
“I have kids in their 20s,” she said. “I don’t know if I could just start over.”
Heidi and her advocate discussed adoption.
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“That’s a good choice for some women,” she said. “But I don’t think I could carry a baby and then give it to someone else.”
With a positive pregnancy test result, Heidi was given an ultrasound. The image of her 10-week-old unborn appeared on the screen. Her eyes widened at the development of her baby. She asked True Care’s nurse several questions, concerned about deformities due to her age and the fact she had a minor surgery earlier in the year.
The nurse assured her that she would receive physician referrals and encouraged her to talk with a doctor about those concerns. Following the appointment with her doctor, Heidi met up with her advocate, who asked her how she was feeling.
“It’s so amazing,” Heidi told her. “I just want to cry!”
The advocate asked if she was still undecided about her pregnancy outcome. “No,” Heidi replied. “I’m going to keep this baby! I really want to.”
These stories are just two examples of the difference pregnancy centers make every day. This is why our work matters. Had True Care not been here for Tosha and Heidi, they would not have been encouraged to talk with physicians regarding their medical concerns, would not have had opportunity to see their unborn on an ultrasound, and would not have received the encouragement and referrals they needed.
Both babies could easily have been lost to abortion.
With the closure of Planned Parenthood in Casper and various communities around the country, True Care and other pregnancy centers are experiencing an increase in abortion-minded and abortion-determined patients. Who would serve these women and their unborn if pregnancy centers didn’t exist?
This year, True Care welcomed more than 350 women through our doors. Nearly half of those with positive pregnancy tests were assessed as abortion-minded or abortion-determined—a significant increase over last year. More than three-quarters were open to hearing the Gospel, and some confessed a newfound Christian faith during their appointments.
The work we do matters. We are here for women like Tosha and Heidi. With over 1,100 centers in the U.S. offering medical services, these women learn the truth about their pregnancies through medical consultations, ultrasound, STD testing and pregnancy options education.
Through pregnancy centers, women and families learn of valuable community resources they often didn’t know existed. They learn about parenting and adoption through long-term education programs like Earn While You Learn and True Care’s Baby & Me classes. They find encouragement through meeting with advocates, nurses and program coordinators.
And, they are introduced to God’s love and grace found in the Gospel.
Pregnancy centers are important, not only in saving the lives of unborn children, but also because we offer women hope, inspiration and confidence—all of which they aren’t likely to receive anywhere else. Even when a woman doesn’t choose life, we are here for her, too, with abortion recovery programs, helping once again bring hope and confidence to those women.
Pregnancy centers matter, now and into the future. We who work in this particular mission field know that the stakes are high. As 2018 dawns, may we continue fighting the battle for life, knowing that the work we do is important… and life-saving.

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