Saturday, February 12, 2022

Pro-Life Group Works to Close Abortion Clinics By Holding Them Accountable for Breaking Laws National | Micaiah Bilger | Feb 11, 2022 | 4:36PM | Washington, DC

 

Pro-Life Group Works to Close Abortion Clinics By Holding Them Accountable for Breaking Laws

National  |  Micaiah Bilger  |   Feb 11, 2022   |   4:36PM   |  Washington, DC

A new pro-life organization is filling an important gap in the fight to end abortion by ensuring authorities hold abortion facilities accountable when they break the law.

Reprotection began in 2020 to protect women and children from harm by investigating dangerous abortion facilities and urging that they be closed down when they violate the law.

“It’s so time-intensive and meticulous that the people are busy running the pregnancy centers or sidewalk counseling or doing policy,” Missy Martinez-Stone, the CEO of Reprotection, told National Review in a new interview. “This needed to be something that stood on its own because it takes so much time and effort and follow-up.”

Martinez-Stone said they look into things like building code violations and staff licensing requirements, botched abortions and other issues, and already their efforts have led to abortion facilities closing.

In one case, she said a sidewalk counselor in Florida contacted the organization after witnessing a patient running out of the abortion facility yelling, “Call 911!”

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Martinez-Stone said they later learned that the woman had had a bad reaction to the anesthesia and, when she complained, the abortionist ignored her. So the woman, fearing for her safety, climbed off the table and ran outside where the sidewalk counselor called 911, she continued.

Reprotection filed a complaint about the incident to the medical board with little success; so, Martinez-Stone said they contacted the governor’s office. A short time later, the medical board decided to investigate the matter, and the abortionist quickly decided to retire and close his abortion facility, she said.

“The hardest part is follow-up because you’re dealing with bureaucracy,” she said. “The bulk of our work comes on the back end of every couple weeks or months: ‘Hey, how’s it going? Where’s our investigation? Where’s our investigation? Why have you not moved on this?’” Martinez-Stone told National Review.

Even in pro-life states, state authorities sometimes ignore potential violations because “the abortion industry makes such a fuss when they’re pushed against,” she continued.

In another case, she said someone told them an abortion facility had put ten women together in the same room and gave them abortion drugs at the same time, a patient privacy violation.

Martinez-Stone said they strive to provide a “confidential safe place” for people to report violations, including women who have had abortions and abortion workers.

She said the Reprotection researchers are trained to help people who have experienced trauma because “the nature of the violations and the complaints we’re dealing with are very sensitive.”

Right now, Martinez-Stone said they are investigating 44 cases in 25 states, and their work is intensive.

“For some reason, the abortion industry thinks that they just get this free pass from being regulated in any way,” she said. “And they don’t; they do not want to be regulated in any way. But it’s stuff that every medical professional has to follow, like informed consent and mandatory reporting and building codes. You need to be able to get a gurney through your hallways, in case there’s an emergency. This is all stuff that everybody else has to meet.”


Baby With Spina Bifida Was Removed From Her Mother’s Womb for Surgery Then Put Back In International | Right to Life UK | Feb 11, 2022 | 2:22PM | London, England

 

Baby With Spina Bifida Was Removed From Her Mother’s Womb for Surgery Then Put Back In

International  |  Right to Life UK  |   Feb 11, 2022   |   2:22PM   |  London, England

A baby has received ‘trail-blazing’ surgery in the womb to fix her spina bifida. At only 23 weeks gestation, baby Mila – short for Milagro, or miracle, in Spanish – underwent a complex operation by a team of 25 clinicians to repair her exposed spinal cord and close the hole in her back.

Her mother, Helena, found out that she had spina bifida at her 20-week scan.

“It was a very large lesion on her back and half of her spine was exposed. They said that it was likely she will be paralysed, incontinent, and will need a shunt to drain the fluid from her brain later on”, she said.

“I was beside myself when they told me all the possible outcomes for having this condition and I couldn’t stop crying”

“They told me the probability of her walking or moving her legs was very, very low – and that was absolutely devastating”.

However, within days of hearing this news, Helena was told that she and her daughter were eligible for surgery whilst her daughter was still in the womb. At 23 weeks, she was referred to a specialist hospital in Belgium, which works in partnership with the NHS, where she had the surgery.

“I’m just so grateful”

Spina bifida affects about 1,500 babies every year. Often part of the spinal cord is exposed and is prevented from developing properly. It can lead to paralysis, bowel, bladder, and kidney problems. But if surgeons can operate at between 22 and 26 weeks of pregnancy, instead of after birth, it means a much better outcome for the baby.

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“I knew if I didn’t get the operation the quality of her life would be very different”, her mother said.

Fetal medicine consultant at University College Hospital in London, Professor Anna David, said: “Previously the baby would have the repair to the defect after birth – but now that we can do the surgery in the womb, the defect is closed a lot earlier so it means there’s less damage to the spine”.

“That increases the chances of the child being able to walk and have more control over their bladder and bowel”.

Three months after the surgery, Mila was born and can move her legs and toes.

Helena said: “I’m just so grateful to the surgeons who’ve done this operation because her life would look very different without it”.

Fetal pain

Babies at 22-26 weeks in the womb can receive surgery to repair spina bifida. These babies receive painkillers before they undergo the operation. However, babies at the same gestation who are undergoing abortion do not receive painkillers. In 2019, Sir Edward Leigh MP asked the Health Secretary if babies being aborted would receive pain relief in light of this contradiction. The Department of Health answered that these babies would not.

Two years later, babies being aborted still do not receive any pain relief.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson said: “Babies undergoing surgery for spina bifida receive painkillers but babies being aborted at the same gestation do not. This contradiction is a direct consequence of an abortion ideology that dehumanises the child in the womb.

“At the same time, through this amazing surgery, the humanity of the child is more evident than ever. But for the Department of Health and Social Care to admit the obvious might lead to the collapse of the whole abortion”.

LifeNews Note: Republished with permission from Right to Life UK.

Idaho Bill Would Ban Abortions Like Texas Law That Has Saved Thousands of Babies From Abortion State | Steven Ertelt | Feb 11, 2022 | 4:11PM | Boise, Idaho

 

Idaho Bill Would Ban Abortions Like Texas Law That Has Saved Thousands of Babies From Abortion

State  |  Steven Ertelt  |   Feb 11, 2022   |   4:11PM   |  Boise, Idaho

The life-saving success of the Texas heartbeat law has Idaho leaders hopeful that their state also could save unborn babies from abortion this year.

Idaho already has a law in place that will ban abortions once Roe v. Wade is overturned. The state legislature also passed a heartbeat law in 2021 that prohibits abortions once an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, but, because of current court precedent, it is not in effect either.

Until the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, neither of those abortion bans can be in force. Now, just in case the nation’s highest court doesn’t reverse the infamous decision, Idaho lawmakers want to pass a Texas-style bill o ban abortions once a heartbeat is detected and to have a private enforcement mechanism.

New reports show as many as 13,860 babies have been saved from abortions in Texas.

Here’s more:

The legislation introduced on Friday from Blaine Conzatti, president of the anti-abortion organization Idaho Family Policy Center, is modeled on a similar law in Texas that is the most restrictive in the nation. The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the Texas law to stay in place, and it is expected to remain that way for the foreseeable future as the legal options for Texas clinics have considerably narrowed. The U.S. Supreme Court is also expected to rule later this year year in a case out of Mississippi that could roll back abortion rights nationwide. “Texas has blazed a pathway that we can follow, and needless to say the pro-life community is very excited,” Conzatti told the Senate State Affairs Committee on Friday. “We can save more than a thousand babies a year from the horror of abortion.”

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Shortly after the bill was introduced on a party-line vote, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates of Idaho issued a statement criticizing the legislation as an “end-run around the constitutional right to abortion.”

Conzatti said they hope the state legislature will act to save unborn babies immediately by amending the state heartbeat law with a private enforcement provision similar to the one in the Texas law.

The unique private enforcement mechanism in the Texas law is the reason why the courts have allowed the law to stay in effect for the past four months, saving thousands of unborn babies’ lives. Though the court battle over the Texas law is not over, pro-lifers in Idaho and other states hope that by passing similar pro-life laws with private enforcement mechanisms that they, too, will save unborn babies from abortion while Roe v. Wade remains.

Since Roe in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited states from banning abortions before an unborn baby is viable. As a result, about 63 million unborn babies have been killed in abortions in the U.S.

Last year, however, the Supreme Court gave pro-life advocates new hope when it refused twice to block enforcement of the Texas law. As a result, Texas is the first state to be allowed to enforce a pre-viability abortion ban in nearly five decades.

In December, the justices also heard a direct challenge to Roe from Mississippi in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. The Supreme Court likely will not publish its ruling on the case until June.

Both cases have renewed hope in the pro-life movement that states will be allowed to protect unborn babies from abortions again soon. Lawmakers in Idaho and many other states already have filed legislation this year to do just that, and more pro-life bills are expected when state legislatures convene again in the new year.


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