anti-abortionbak
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">abortion619</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see other nodes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">320 primary on scam</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha key to polarization</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">attempt to grab moral high ground, obligates them to nothing aside from attack other tribe (at min vote?), vs adopt a kid or even pay taxes for decent schools</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">az gop mtg kegger big fat guy claimed ex cop started rant w/ baby killer, mantra, BLM guy knocked down, blake masters defend womanhood</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN 2 22</font></div><div><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A debate between the Republicans running for Michigan attorney general confirmed warnings from reproductive rights advocates that Republicans aren’t going to stop with abortion bans—</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">they’re coming for birth control next</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In the last question of last Friday’s debate, </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/02/michigan-republicans-give-terrifying-answers-on-a-landmark-contraception-case/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">all three men said</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> they thought the 1965 Supreme Court decision striking down laws banning the sale of contraception had been wrongly decided, because states’ rights.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At least two of the three candidates did not know what <em>Griswold v. Connecticut</em> was about—</b>which itself is kind of an issue in people campaigning to be Michigan’s top lawyer, since <em>Griswold</em> is a pretty damn famous case. (I literally learned about it in high school, and I am not a lawyer.) But all three agreed, once they learned what it was, that it was bad.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Connecticut law struck down in <em>Griswold</em> allowed the prosecution of married couples for buying contraception. In <em>Griswold</em>, the Supreme Court said that the law violated the “right to marital privacy,” foreshadowing the privacy right that would be invoked in <em>Roe v. Wade</em> in 1973.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Here’s what the Michigan Republicans seeking to be the state’s top law enforcement officer had to say about the marital right to privacy around birth control decisions.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Remind me,” Tom Leonard, the former speaker of the state House, said. After an explanation, he was ready to condemn the decision.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Yeah, okay, I just, and I wanted clarification,” Leonard said. “This case, much like <em>Roe v. Wade</em>, I believe was wrongly decided, because it was an issue that trampled states’ rights and it was an issue that should have been left up to the states.”</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">State Rep. Ryan Berman literally pulled out his phone during that exchange.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>”Yeah, you know what, I wasn’t familiar with <em>Griswold v. Connecticut, </em>but I’m an advanced legal researcher so I pulled it up real quick to look what it’s about,” </b>he said. “And it says the court ruled that the Constitution did in fact protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception. Again, I would have to look more into it and the reasoning behind it, but I’m all about states’ rights and limiting federal judicial activism.”</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Matthew DePerno, endorsed by Donald Trump for enthusiastically signing on to the Big Lie about the 2020 elections, had the same basic answer, minus the admission that he didn’t know what he was talking about.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">”Listen, all these cases that deal—<em>Griswold</em>, <em>Roe v. Wade</em>, <em>Dobbs</em>— these are <b>all state right issues. </b>I think that’s what we’re gonna see with the US Supreme Court. They’re gonna come down on the side that these liberty issues—number one, the wide expanse that was given on <em>Roe v. Wade</em> and this litany—are unworkable. The Supreme Court has to deal with that, has to decide, mark my words, that the privacy issue currently is unworkable. It’s going to be a state right issue on all of these things—as it should be!”</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">DePerno <a href="https://michiganadvance.com/2022/02/20/gop-attorney-general-hopefuls-seek-to-overturn-landmark-contraception-law-push-for-election-audit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wasn’t done</a>. “We need to start defending state rights as attorney generals, across this country</b>,” he said. “Too many people, even in our own party, too many people have lost the idea of what states’ rights means. They haven’t read the works of our Founding Fathers. They haven’t read The Federalist Papers. They continue to push the idea that we need to give rights away to the federal government. We don’t.<b> We need to take state rights back. We need to stand in our borders. When the feds come and try to take our rights, we need to stand as citizens in Michigan and hold the line and protect states’ rights.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, yes. Republicans are 100% coming for the right to obtain birth control once the Trump Supreme Court strikes down <em>Roe v. Wade</em>, with that decision likely coming this June. Already some states are advancing <a href="https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2022/01/19/how-the-anti-abortion-movement-is-already-building-a-post-roe-world/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">personhood legislation</a>, which would declare an embryo or fetus to be a legal person. Such laws criminalize abortion, but they also potentially ban forms of birth control like the pill, IUDs, and emergency contraception.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">”All 3 Republicans running for Michigan Attorney General just stated that they oppose the ruling in Griswold v Connecticut which outlawed prosecuting married couples for using contraception,”<b> Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel <a href="https://twitter.com/dananessel/status/1494833301110116355" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tweeted Friday evening</a>. “You read that right. Terrifying.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lots of people who support abortion rights spent years responding lackadaisically to warnings that Republicans were stacking the Supreme Court to overturn <em>Roe v. Wade</em> and legalize abortion bans. Now we see how true those warnings were, as they come to fruition. It’s time to sit up and listen to the warnings that Republicans won’t stop there.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5/20</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/the-jig-is-up-the-woman-behind-roe-v-wade-became-a-hero-of-abortion-opponents-but-now-we-know-it-was-all-an-act/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/the-jig-is-up-the-woman-behind-roe-v-wade-became-a-hero-of-abortion-opponents-but-now-we-know-it-was-all-an-act/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">//</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 520</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">h</font><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-the-religious-rights-war-against-abortion-is-built-on-lies-grifting-and-bullying/" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" color="color" rgb="rgb" transition="transition" all="all" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" display="display" inline="inline" important="important" font-size="font-size" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" line-height="line-height">ow the religious right’s war against abortion is built on lies, grifting and bullying</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/amanda-marcotte/" title="Posts by Amanda Marcotte" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Amanda Marcotte</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right;">/</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right;"> </span></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></span></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Tuesday, both the pro- and anti-choice world were rocked by <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/19/jane-roe-roe-v-wade-deathbed-confession-fx-nick-sweeney/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a revelation that undermines literal decades of religious right nonsense</a>. Norma McCorvey, the “<b>Jane Roe” </b>of the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/03/abortion-rights-june-medical-services-russo-carole-joffe/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide</a> in 1973, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/02/18/mccorvey-who-was-at-center-of-roe-v-wade-dead-at-69/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">claimed before her 2017 death</a> that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/the_ever_changing_ideologies_of_jane_roe/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">her famous “conversion”</a> to anti-abortion activism was a con job.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">McCorvey told filmmaker Nick Sweeney during the taping of his new FX documentary, “AKA Jane Roe,” “I took their money, and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">For pro-choice activists, the revelation was less exciting than frustrating. For decades, the anti-abortion movement has held out McCorvey’s “conversion” as a morality tale about how women, deep down inside, really don’t want access to abortion, but instead are being deceived by a supposedly ruthless “abortion industry.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">McCorvey was a prop in service of this argument, which depends on sexist stereotypes painting women as too feeble-minded and gullible to be the proper stewards of their own lives. Her tale of woe, where she was fooled into thinking abortion was a right, until she was “saved” by anti-choice ministers like Flip Benham, was all about serving this narrative: Women can’t be trusted with autonomy, and need “godly” men to guide them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>(Benham, a supposedly wise and “pro-life” guidance-giver to women, <a href="https://twitter.com/heyitscalla/status/1246446726476677121" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has been seen in recent months violating coronavirus restrictions</a> in order to harass patients and staff at a North Carolina clinic</b>, even though doing so directly threatens to spread a deadly disease among the protesters, clinic staff and the pregnant people seeking care.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Having spent years covering the pro-choice movement, I can safely say that the widespread view in pro-choice circles of McCorvey’s “conversion” was one of skepticism. Frankly, she was a sketchy character and that was no secret. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2009/07/14/jane_roe_for_life/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">She admitted to lying about being raped</a>, even though the pro-choice lawyers who argued Roe had no interest in making the case about rape. McCorvey publicly waged war on Sarah Weddington, the pro-choice lawyer who argued the Roe case before the Supreme Court, apparently furious that Weddington didn’t try to help her get an illegal abortion during the run-up to Roe. McCorvey didn’t seem to care that if Weddington had committed a crime on her behalf, it could have ended a case that granted millions of women the right to an abortion without the threat of jail.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">So yeah, pro-choicers always suspected McCorvey was getting paid off somehow, and the number that Sweeney uncovers — nearly half a million dollars over the years — sounds about right.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But the main reason pro-choicers suspected the McCorvey conversion was a sham wasn’t about McCorvey’s character, but about the dynamics of the anti-choice movement in general. It’s no exaggeration to say that the anti-choice movement, from tip to toe, is stuffed with liars and grifters. Their entire raison d’être is telling lies — often over-the-top, melodramatic lies — in service of sticking it to women, LGBT people and liberals in general for not respecting the “right” of the religious right to dominate the rest of us.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The anti-choice movement has always been run by lying trolls, and always will be.</b> They set the template for the rest of the conservative movement, and <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/01/24/how-the-anti-choice-movements-lies-laid-the-foundation-for-donald-trumps-big-cover-up/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">paved the way for the rise of Donald Trump</a>, whose presidential victory was a perfect summary of the fact that right-wing American politics has become one big, long con.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The over-the-top, theatrical lies of the anti-choice movement are so comical that the mainstream media, for decades, has shied away from covering them too closely, likely out of fear that they’re actually too ridiculous to be believed.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For instance, over the past few years anti-choice activists have begun to claim that doctors deliver viable infants alive and let them die. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/02/27/republican-witch-hunt-trump-and-the-gop-need-a-scapegoat-naturally-they-attack-women/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Trump likes to tell this story with vivid and completely made-up details </a>about swaddling a baby in blankets before murdering it. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/25/18239964/born-alive-abortion-survivors-protection-2020-sasse" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Senate held hearings in which anti-choice activist Jill Stanek</a> — <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media-research-center/staneks-selection-exposes-credentials-required-be-right-wing-media-critic" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a crazed, racist liar who also claims Chinese people think aborted fetuses are a “delicacy”</a> — claimed, <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/washington-post/wash-post-purported-give-both-sides-born-alive-bill-dispute-left-out-illinois?redirect_source=/research/2008/08/20/wash-post-purported-to-give-both-sides-of-born/144491" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">almost certainly falsely</a>, that she once witnessed a baby being killed this way. (Stanek has also argued that <a href="https://rewire.news/article/2009/07/08/jill-stanek-doesnt-want-prevent-abortions/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">contraception bans are necessary</a> to force people to have sex only within marriage.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">)</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>To bolster this argument, the anti-choice movement <a href="https://humandefense.com/meet-born-alive-abortion-survivors/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">also trots out a series of people</a> who claim to have “survived” abortion. Did they? Probably not!</b> The procedures they describe have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/health/abortion-bill-trump.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">no relationship to actual methods used to terminate pregnancies in the real world</a>. Anti-choice “testimony” is all to often as McCorvey described it: “[T]hey took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But this “born alive” mania has mostly been ignored by the mainstream media, except for occasional gawking at Trump’s weird rally stories. I suspect that happens because these tales are so grotesque and improbable that journalists fear their audiences will think they made it all up. Instead, anti-choice activists get a glow-up in mainstream coverage, presented as less hysterical and less prone to lies and bizarre flights of fancy than they actually are.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The “baby parts” debacle from a few years ago is another example of how the anti-choice movement is not a group sober-minded devout Christians who just love “life,”</b> but in fact a bunch of fanatics who have contempt for the truth and think nothing of spinning wild stories and engaging in implausible thought-experiments in their efforts to smear feminists.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A series of “undercover” videos purporting to “prove” that clinics like Planned Parenthood were secretly selling “baby parts” out the back door <a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/04/06/the_poster_child_of_anti_choice_sleaze_david_daleiden_planned_parenthood_video_hoaxster_gets_raided_but_to_the_unhinged_religious_right_hes_a_hero/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">were released by an anti-choice activist named David Daleiden</a> in 2015. To anyone familiar with the anti-choice movement and their reliance on fantastical stories, it was obvious this would turn out to be bullshit, but too many mainstream media organizations ran credulous stories, bamboozled by their own decades of coverage falsely painting anti-choicers as serious-minded people instead of fundamentalist whackadoodles.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sure enough, after the first round of credulous coverage, the facts started to emerge: Planned Parenthood doesn’t sell baby parts.” They donate fetal tissue to clinics that use it for medical research — <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/the-truth-about-fetal-tissue-research-1.18960" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">research that saves far more lives</a> than any nut waving a bloody fetus poster board has ever saved. The videos had been altered to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">make innocent people look guilty</a>. Eventually, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/planned-parenthood-lawsuit-secret-videos.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Planned Parenthood won a lawsuit against Daleiden</a> and <a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/david_daleidens_sleaze_factory_his_latest_court_defeat_exposes_how_slimy_the_center_for_medical_progress_is/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">he was arrested</a> for counterfeiting government documents.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This myth of the humble, righteous anti-choice activist works its way not just into the media but into Supreme Court cases, such as one in 2014 case, <a href="https://rewire.news/article/2014/01/30/buffer-zones-peaceful-clinic-protesters/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">when anti-choice activists argued against an anti-protest buffer zone around clinics </a>by claiming they were merely “sidewalk counselors” trying to “help” women.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a32624/boston-abortion-planned-parenthood-protests/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">An investigation by Jill Filipovic at Cosmopolitan </a>exposed the truth: They’re a bunch of bullies who are angry at women for having sex and show up at clinics to harass them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“If women want careers and education and everything and they don’t want children,” one protester complained to Filipovic, “what are they doing having sex?”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Another complained that “there were no problems” back when women “had to be obedient to their husbands.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Instead of contraception, a protester argued, “the way to control [pregnancy] is not to hop into bed with every Tom, Dick, and Harry.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/court-strikes-down-abortion-clinic-buffer-zone-in-plain-english/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The court sided with the bullies</a>, unsurprisingly, elevating the myth that these belligerent protesters merely wished to “counsel” women.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Anti-choicers have long pushed this myth that they’re righteous warriors going up against a sleazy “abortion industry” and trying to “save” women. This is pure projection on their part, and a complete inversion of reality.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In truth, the pro-choice movement exists to help women, and the anti-choice movement exists to strip them of their rights and subjugate them both legally and socially. The pro-choice movement stands with science and medical facts, while the anti-choice movement is rife with liars and grifters, and spews a dizzying amount of propaganda based on nothing but misogyny and lurid fantasy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The press should stop being fooled by the way anti-choicers hide behind the Bible and the cross and see them for who they are: Bullies who are trying to take important medical care away from women at a vulnerable moment in their lives. Perhaps the revelation that anti-choicers literally bought off Norma McCorvey and paid her to lie will help open up some eyes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But it’s also important to step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Roe v. Wade was never about Norma McCorvey. She was simply the plaintiff recruited for a case that was actually about the rights of millions of people who have faced or will face a pregnancy they don’t want or can’t bring to term, for whatever reason. By recruiting McCorvey to their side, anti-choice activists sought to erase the existence of these millions of people who have been saved by access to safe, legal abortion. It’s a shame that McCorvey betrayed all those people for so long. But at least before she died, she told the truth.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 320</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">aha: typically gop does exactly what they accuse dems of, wishlist:</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/how-the-coronavirus-crisis-revealed-the-danger-of-the-decades-long-conservative-movement/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/how-the-coronavirus-crisis-revealed-the-danger-of-the-decades-long-conservative-movement/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>How the coronavirus crisis revealed the danger of the decades-long conservative movement</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon March 13, 2020</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell smelled an evil liberal conspiracy on Thursday, one designed to steal away his decades of tireless work to kneecap the federal government. The Democratic-majority House had passed a large emergency bill, designed to combat the coronavirus pandemic, and McConnell was absolutely certain Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were trying to pull one over on him.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Unfortunately, it appears at this hour that the speaker and House Democrats instead chose to produce an ideological wish list that was not tailored closely to the circumstances,” McConnell said. He accused Democrats of exploiting this situation, saying the bill addresses “various areas of policy that are barely related, if at all, to the issue before us.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>There’s a lot at stake here, but apparently the big sticking point for McConnell was a provision requiring employers to offer paid sick leave to employees, which McConnell claims would “put thousands of small businesses at risk.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In reality, of course, this is just common sense. As the New York Times editorial board noted, companies that don’t offer paid sick leave “are endangering their workers and customers.” A lot of workers with public-facing jobs — such as food service workers and retail employees — come into close contact with dozens or hundreds of people a day. But they are the people least likely to be allowed to stay home without losing their jobs, or at least losing a paycheck.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>McConnell is so poisoned by his right-wing ideology that he can’t see this, or chooses not to. Instead, he’s standing firm on the long-standing Republican tendency to view employers as feudal lords who should be allowed to treat employees however they wish — even, apparently, if that means allowing a deadly disease to rip through the population, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of people if it is not checked.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So far, most of the panic over the coronavirus outbreak has been driven by the undeniable incompetence of Donald Trump. At every turn, Trump has made this situation worse — even going so far as to try to discourage testing to bamboozle the public and, I suspect, tanking the markets by screwing up an Oval Office address because he’s too vain to wear glasses so he can see well enough to read a teleprompter.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That’s</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> all true. But it’s also important to understand that the larger Republican Party, even without Trump, is also to blame for what looks to be a serious public health crisis. Right-wing ideology, often</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> marketed as “rugged individualism” but perhaps better understood as an aversion to the very concept of a common good,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> is one major reason why the U.S. government, hamstrung for decades by Republican power, isn’t better equipped to handle a crisis.</span></b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This isn’t just a Trump problem. This is a widespread Republican problem. For decades, GOP strategy has been consistent: Whenever they get power, they slash regulations and gut spending, with the goal of making government less effective. This is a deliberate strategy to make the public broadly distrustful of government, and therefore increasingly open to shifting more and more power to the wealthy individuals who control the private sector.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This ideological commitment to an every-man-for-himself ideology, which is terrible in any circumstances, is exposed as particularly dreadful in the face of a pandemic. Disease is a reminder that humans are a herd species, wholly dependent on each other for survival, and that government must be a way to formally organize that joint survival pattern. It’s not some villain in a racism-inflected right-wing morality fable about the importance of “personal responsibility.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Simply put, we need our government to be able to protect us from disease. Republicans have spent years tearing it down, and even in a crisis are incapable of accepting that “small government” is not always a good thing.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Max Moran at Talking Points Memo argued, the fact that Vice President Mike Pence — deemed a “normal” Republican — is in charge of the coronavirus comforts some people, because they believe he is more adult and responsible than Trump. Pence’s track record suggests otherwise. As governor of Indiana, he oversaw an HIV outbreak that led to 10% of the population people in a single county becoming infected because Pence thought preaching the value of personal responsibility was better than following the recommendations of public health experts.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“[A] Pence-led response is dangerous, not in spite of, but precisely because he is a typical Republican,” Moran writes, because normal Republicans “apply their competence and considerable resources” to the task of “protection for the powerful, callousness for the afflicted, and a special disdain for the ‘other.'”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The right-wing idiocy that is going to get people killed is all over the Republican response to this situation</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joined McConnell in denouncing the Democratic bill, even though everything in it — including expanding food-stamp spending — will either help slow the spread of the disease or stimulate the American economy to offset the inevitable slowdown caused by this epidemic.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Instead, McCarthy is resorting to <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">racism</span> instead of sensible public health measures, calling the coronavirus the “Chinese coronavirus” for no apparent purpose except to feed the assumptions of the Fox News base than their whiteness and their racist attitudes will somehow protect them</b>. (This assumption, by the way, is leading many older Americans to take serious and completely unnecessary risks with their health.)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The right-wing ideology poisoning is so bad that the coronavirus bill was held up in part because</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Republicans wanted to inject some anti-abortion language into it.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> There is absolutely no reason to believe that helping people protect themselves against a viral epidemic will lead to more abortions, but that’s the modern GOP for you: They’re always worried that somehow or other the Democrats have a sneaky agenda to “let” women have sex. (Which women will undoubtedly do, whether the Democrats authorize it or not.)</span></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></font></div><div style=""><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/12/gop-delays-coronavirus-bill-in-part-over-complaints-that-it-doesnt-bar-federal-funds-for-abortion/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.salon.com/2020/03/12/gop-delays-coronavirus-bill-in-part-over-complaints-that-it-doesnt-bar-federal-funds-for-abortion/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even the so-called Republican “moderates” are to blame for this situation. For instance, Politico reporter Michael Grunwald uncovered this little tidbit about Sen. Susan Collins of Maine from his book about the Obama era.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Grunwald</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@MikeGrunwald</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I had forgotten my own reporting that @SenatorCollins stripped $870M for pandemic preparations out of the 2009 stimulus.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zooming out, it’s easy to see how decades of damage to our government are likely to make this epidemic worse. Republicans have been stingy about health care spending and have blocked Democratic efforts to increase access, especially when it comes to the Medicaid expansion under the Obama administration. The result is that we have fewer doctors and hospitals ready to handle what we know is coming, and we will probably have a lot of infected people who won’t get tested, either because they can’t afford it or don’t even know where to go for testing and treatment.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By all means, blame Trump for the current crisis. His incompetence is especially central to the panicked reaction of the financial markets. Even a slightly steadier president, whatever his or her party or ideology, would bolster investor confidence a whole lot more.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this isn’t just about Trump. Republicans have a profound hostility to good government, and whatever slapdash response they may grudgingly accept in an effort to save their skins at the ballot box this November will be hamstrung by the fact that they refused, for decades, to invest in the infrastructure necessary to weather the big shock that is hitting us right now. Viruses are the ultimate reminder that humans are interconnected and need each other, and that the ideal of “rugged individualism” is childish and often racist nonsense.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">no lnx ref</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>GOP delays coronavirus bill in part over complaints that it doesn't bar federal funds for abortion</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Very on-brand for pro-lifers to refuse to save a whole bunch of lives," feminist writer Jill Filipovic says</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">IGOR DERYSH</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MARCH 12, 2020 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The White House and congressional Republicans refused to support House Democrats' coronavirus relief bill, in part over claims that it does not safeguard against federal funds being used to provide abortions.</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced Thursday that the Senate will not go on its scheduled recess next week to continue negotiations on the legislation. The announcement came after McConnell rejected the bill proposed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calling it an "ideological wish list." President Donald Trump also objected to what he claimed were Democratic "goodies" in the bill.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Among the Republicans' hangups are a provision that would provide paid sick leave to workers, </b>NBC News reported, and a complaint about an unrelated issue: abortion.</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"The White House believes provisions in the Pelosi bill that pertain to the Violence Against Women Act could open the door to federal funds for abortion," the network reported." In response, the White House wants to add Hyde Amendment language to the bill — restricting the use of federal funds for abortion."</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Several senior White House officials told the far-right outlet The Daily Caller that Pelosi lobbied for up to $1 billion in reimbursements for laboratory claims, which the officials claimed "would set a precedent of health spending without protections outlined in the Hyde Amendment."</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"A new mandatory funding stream that does not have Hyde protections would be unprecedented," a White House official told the outlet. "Under the guise of protecting people, Speaker Pelosi is working to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent covering abortion — which is not only backwards, but goes against historical norms."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Another White House official not named in the report went a step further, accusing Pelosi of pushing for an abortion "slush fund."</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But The Daily Caller acknowledged in its story that Politico had already reported that the "two sides resolved issues over federal funding of abortion in a separate bill."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ilyse Hogue, the head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said the White House claims were a "straight up lie."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"The fact that the GOP would use the [coronavirus pandemic] to spread more falsehoods and grind an ideological ax is sickening and perverse," she said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Planned Parenthood accused Republicans of using the COVID-19 pandemic to score political points.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Using this very real public health emergency to attack abortion coverage shows a despicable lack of concern about the severity of this crisis," the organization said. "These politicians will do anything to advance their anti-abortion agenda."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Yet again, Republicans prove they'll do anything to attack abortion – including co-opting a public health crisis to further their agenda," the National Women's Law Center said in a statement. "People need care – not to be used as political bargaining chips."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Democratic-led House is expected to approve the bill Thursday, but the Republican-led Senate will hold off until Pelosi negotiates an agreement with the White House.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"I am glad talks are ongoing between the administration and Speaker Pelosi," McConnell said. "I hope Congress can pass bipartisan legislation to continue combating the coronavirus and keep our economy strong."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pelosi said at a news conference that Democrats were "addressing" some Republican concerns as she pushed back on Republican plans to delay the negotiations into next week.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"We need to just make a decision to help families right now," she said. "We are responding to their concerns, we don't want them moving the goalposts and that's it. I'm not sticking around because they don't want to agree to language."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But Republicans' attempts to delay the funding bill over an unrelated issue like abortion left Democrats apoplectic amid the administration's bungled response to the pandemic.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"I'm enraged beyond words right now," Hogue said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Very on-brand for pro-lifers to refuse to save a whole bunch of lives," feminist writer Jill Filipovic added, "[and] put millions of people at risk so they can do a little performative politicking that won't actually prevent a single abortion."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">IGOR DERYSH</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Igor Derysh is a staff writer at Salon. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">new</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/rise-of-a-shadow-political-party-how-christian-nationalists-worship-power-and-why-they-love-trump/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/rise-of-a-shadow-political-party-how-christian-nationalists-worship-power-and-why-they-love-trump/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/rise-of-a-shadow-political-party-how-christian-nationalists-worship-power-and-why-they-love-trump/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rise of a ‘shadow political party’: How Christian nationalists worship power — and why they love Trump</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon March 4, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s one of the most enduring conundrums of the Donald Trump era: How is it that the Christian right, the self-appointed monitors of American morality, have come to so enthusiastically back a thrice-married chronic adulterer who lies as easily as he breathes?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Author Katherine Stewart has the answer: Because the true god these folks worship is power. In her book, “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,</b>” Stewart details how she traveled around the country, getting to know the various Christian conservative figures that are whipping support for Trump and his agenda. She deems the “Christian nationalists” and demonstrates how their supposedly Christian values always come second to their endless quest for power.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stewart spoke with Salon about her new book. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In the intro of the book you write that most Americans view the Christian right as a “cultural movement centered on a set of social issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage.” But in fact, it’s a political movement and its ultimate goal is power. What do you mean by that?</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I think when we think of the religious right, we’re often thinking of a cultural movement or social movement that works from the bottom up, expressing the anxieties and reactions of a particular group in American society to change social realities, focused on issues like reproductive rights or same-sex marriage.<b> But Christian nationalism really works from the top down. It actively shapes and manipulates its target population, and it often shifts its target.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When movement leaders are talking to the congregants or to pastors who speak to congregants, it’s all abortion all the time. The foot soldiers may even believe that they’re fighting for things like a ban on abortion or same-sex marriage, but the leaders have actually consciously reframed these issues in such a way that they can control the vote of a large subsection of the American public. They use that to solidify and maintain political power for themselves and their allies, to increase the flow of public and private money in their direction, and to enact economic policies that are favorable to their funders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When you dig a little deeper into wha<b>t the movement leaders talk about when they talk with one another, they actually advocate for a very wide range of policy issues that don’t just have to do with abortion or same-sex marriage. A lot of it has to do with economic policy. A lot of it has to do with foreign policy, social policy. It’s important to look at the movement in this broader fashion as a political movement that wants power.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tell me more about that. How does someone argue that there’s something Christian about, say, low tax and low regulation?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>They say that the Bible favors minimal government or no government. The Bible is against regulation, against the social safety net. Unless the social safety net is managed by the church.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Someone like Ralph Drollinger</b> — who targets political leaders at the top levels of government — he’s got this Bible study group in the Capitol that’s been attended by at least 11 members of Trump’s cabinet, including Mike Pence. He also has Bible study groups targeting the Senate and House of Representatives, and they’re very well-attended. So he’s arguably one of the most politically influential pastors in America.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He argues that social welfare programs have no basis in Scripture.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He says that the government should not directly fund needs for the poor. He says the responsibility to meet the needs of the poor lies first with a husband and a marriage, second with a family if the husband is absent, and third with the church. He says nowhere does God command the institutions of government or commerce to fully support those with genuine needs.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>These policies are incredibly favorable to the plutocratic fortunes that are funding the movement.</b> The movement wouldn’t be what it is without some subsection of very wealthy individuals and extended families that are supporting the movement financially. I’m thinking of like the<b> DeVos, Prince families, the Green family</b>, and so many others that I described in my book.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>These families, in turn, benefit from a deregulation of lack of environmental control regulation, low taxation, and minimal workers’ rights.</b> Drollinger himself derived a lot of his early funding from agribusiness kings, people who own <b>large agribusiness conglomerates in Central Valley, </b>California, and the San Joaquin Valley. So it’s a kind of economic policy that actually is favorable to many of the big-picture funders of the movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We also have to recognize that the role of public money is absolutely huge. A lot of the calls for “religious freedom” that characterize much of the activism of the movement today are often seen, rightly so, as a demand that conservative Christians should be able to discriminate against LGBT Americans, nonreligious women and members of the religious minority groups. But even more than that, activists have their eye on a vast potential flow of public funds in the future. This is one of the reasons why the calls for religious freedom are just like this ever-louder drum beat that we’re hearing in so many places.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This agenda has been made really explicit in the field of <b>public education </b>where activists are determined to expand access to public funds in the form of vouchers. They’ve actually placed a key voucher case before the Supreme Court, which they hope will allow a greater funnel of funds in their direction.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The United States spends something like $700 billion a year on K-12. So Christian nationalists realize that, if they can get their hands on a small portion of that in the name of religious liberty, the money will flow without end</span>. So when you look at the larger demands of the movement, it’s not just about these culture war issues, it’s about public policy, foreign policy, and it’s about money.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You call it a Christian nationalist movement, not a white nationalist movement, not the Christian right even. Why do you call it a Christian nationalist movement?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Christian nationalism is a political ideology.</b> It says that what makes the United States distinctive is not our democratic system of government, or our Constitution, or our history of assimilating diverse people in a pluralist society. Instead, it insists that the foundation of legitimate government is bound up inextricably with the reactionary understanding of a particular religion. It basically says that the U.S. was founded on the Bible, and can only succeed if it stays true to that foundation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">It’s also not just an ideology, but a device for mobilizing and often manipulating large segments of the population and for concentrating power in the hands of this new elite. Vladimir Putin in Russia, or Viktor Orban in Hungary, or Erdogan in Turkey tie themselves closely to religious conservatives in their countries, to consolidate an authoritarian form of power. We’re seeing this today with Trump’s alliances, with our own religious conservatives.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You write that America’s conservative churches have been converted into “loyal cells of a shadow political party.” What do you mean by that?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Leaders of the movement have figured out that pastors drive votes, and so they organize pastors into these networks, to get them on the same page politically. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They give them<b> tools through networks of conservative churches </b>in order to do that, to help them turn out votes for hyper-conservative candidates.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently, I found myself at a small church in rural North Carolina, with dozens of evangelical pastors from the area. I was at an event sponsored by an organization called <b>Watchmen on the Wall, which is an initiative of the Family Research Council,</b> which is one of the largest and most powerful policy groups of the Christian right.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Watchmen on the Wall claims to have over 25,000 pastor members. They get all these pastors networked together, and they have these presentations where they tell them what issues matter and how to turn out the vote on these “biblical issues.” There wasn’t a slightest doubt about which way these pastors were expected to tell their congregations to vote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They were instructed to form what they call <b>culture impact teams </b>within their churches. They have to figure out which members of their congregation are politically active, well-connected with other members, and motivated to get them to vote according to “biblical values.” They gave these pastors these booklets, 200 pages of material that help them form these culture impact teams.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>They actually give them tools to get them out to vote. They give them tens of thousands of voter guides, and pastors were encouraged to take as many as they could use and hand out.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Your chapter on the anti-abortion movement in the book is titled “Inventing Abortion.” You write that it’s a myth that the movement was a reaction to a sincere belief in protecting fetal life. Tell me more. What is this Christian right obsession with abortion? Where does it come from? What is it actually about?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Roe v. Wade was passed, the liberalization of abortion laws was something that many, if not most, Republican partisans supported. The early battles over abortion tended to be between Catholics and Protestants, with Protestants largely on the side of liberalization of abortion laws. Even though Catholic hierarchy is opposed to abortion, many Catholic individuals supported some form of liberalization based on sort of lived experience.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At that time that Roe v. Wade passed, the abortion law reform really conformed with the Republican party’s support for Protestant values, birth control. Billy Graham in 1968 said, “In general, I would disagree with the Catholic stance. I believe in Planned Parenthood.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The most liberal abortion law in the country was signed in 1967 by California’s Republican governor, Ronald Reagan. Barry Goldwater, who is this great conservative hero, supported abortion law liberalization early in his career. His wife, Peggy, was a co-founder of Planned Parenthood in Arizona.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When Roe v. Wade passed, in fact, there was a wire service run by the Southern Baptist Convention. The bureau chief of the Baptist Press wrote a piece saying that religious liberty, human equality, and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court decision.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This was not an issue that united the Republican party at all, until activists from the new right got involved and were </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">really searching for an issue that could unite the party.</span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At the time, they’d come together out of concern that institutions like Bob Jones University would be deprived of their lucrative tax advantage</b>. But they knew that preserving tax advantages for racially segregated academies is not going to be an issue that could really unite the party. So they kind of looked around for an issue that could unite conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bit by bit, they settled on abortion and sort of purged the Republican party of its pro-choice representatives. They needed a single issue that they could get people to vote on, and abortion became that issue.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Let’s talk about Donald Trump. He’s obviously not a religious man. He knows little of Christian theology. He can’t even get the terminology right. He can’t really even be bothered to pretend otherwise. So how is a man like that such a hero to the Christian nationalists?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First, the movement realizes that much of their agenda is advanced through the courts and he’s delivering them everything that he promised.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I was at a Road To Majority conference, that’s Ralph Reed’s conference, right before the election. Trump held up a list of justices and he said, “I’m going to choose Supreme Court justices from this list,” and every single one of them was pro-life. Of course, the issue wasn’t just abortion, but abortion becomes code for the entire agenda.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s that transactional side of it. But I think that there’s another side too. Trump’s anti-democratic attributes are a vital part of his attraction for this movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This movement doesn’t really believe in modern representative democracy. At bottom, they sound as though they prefer autocrats. In fact, what they really want is a king. Paula White is always calling Trump a king. Ralph Drollinger is always talking about kinging and kings. Trump has been referred to as King Cyrus.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The thing about kings like Cyrus is that they don’t have to follow the rules. They are the law. Trump understands this longing for the hard hand of the despot. That is what has made him such an attractive leader to this movement.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 220</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p class="yiv2792934754headline3" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" margin="margin" padding="padding"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click1.e.alternet.org/ozfmlcqsqvfdflnndkjqqdqnnkdnswrpmvqfjtckzllw_orrztqmqdtwmjtlkzlw.html?a=&b=3845&c=21989&d=2" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Those were the Anthony Kennedy days’: Brett Kavanaugh is getting ready for his first major abortion case</font></a></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Georgia, " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-style="font-style" italic="italic" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" padding="padding"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the U.S. Supreme Court in…</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">redmap did systemic long term damage TP--> freedom cocks, suicide squad, unaccountable old white guys --> voter suppression, anti-abortion ..</b><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">.</span></font></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">they gop also working on pack capture the courts; they'll need scotus to overturn roe, but a bunch of red and a few blue states have already passed laws that kick in when that happens.</font></span></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">as impeach goes So for trump, big push to keep base</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="mag-post-box hentry" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; width: 374.545px; overflow: hidden; display: table; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236);"><div class="magcat-detail" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trump-expected-to-give-anti-abortion-extremists-huge-gift-in-an-unprecedented-move-at-the-march-for-life/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump expected to give anti-abortion extremists huge gift in an unprecedented move at the ‘March for Life’</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-badash/" title="Posts by David Badash" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">David Badash</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-new-civil-rights-movement/" title="Posts by The New Civil Rights Movement" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New Civil Rights Movement</a></font></span></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="outline: none;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/far-right-white-evangelicals-love-trump-for-many-reasons-including-their-terrifying-obsession-with-the-end-times-report" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/far-right-white-evangelicals-love-trump-for-many-reasons-including-their-terrifying-obsession-with-the-end-times-report</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1219</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">forced sonogram, must view</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/supreme-courts-newest-move-on-abortion-approves-torture-for-pregnant-people/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Supreme Court’s newest move on abortion approves torture for pregnant people</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/supreme-courts-newest-move-on-abortion-approves-torture-for-pregnant-people/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/supreme-courts-newest-move-on-abortion-approves-torture-for-pregnant-people/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Common Dream</a><span style="text-align: right;">s</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 1119</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Fox “news” program <i>Outnumbered Overtime</i>, anchor Harris Faulkner regularly allows guests representing President Trump to <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=756cdd82541603c6598b30e3977a5cdfc2e98fc64e799e111a06ed158efdb6e167a46199b47cccd741b27462df51f3cb5aca0200bafa943a" title="promote lies about abortion" style="">promote lies about abortion</a> without pushing back or challenging their claims.</font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When it comes to abortion-related coverage, Fox’s “news”-side frequently pushes <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=756cdd82541603c62c1f950d0edc44f5fc502275584b8e66be0ad3f0874902b1ccf62154c15dac93d7fe9fad6a3abbb25d281e723a82d901" title="the same anti-abortion misinformation" style="">the same anti-abortion misinformation</a> as its <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=756cdd82541603c64e12075effc4eb0879a010d1fb99bd2090d66fcebc301192601e3aecdfe2c7cb2b80b1b7b013bdb90306b5b4e440ba15" title="opinion coverage" style="">opinion coverage</a>. After state legislatures in New York and Virginia attempted to protect or expand abortion access in the face of conservative attacks, both Fox’s “news” and opinion shows <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=756cdd82541603c659b6c227c13e1db763e8f84b445c8ff960e0b51a22adf667bd162b19b18a5590bd068d81993c0558668b02941e93d32a" title="went all-out" style="">went all-out</a> in <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=756cdd82541603c63d1edff3baa3229069d12e4ef37fe8c360e331782f38b806db1bf73482f679c56f98b4b7e9ab181486a1911e00a8fbf8" title="promoting the lie" style="">promoting the lie</a> that Democrats support abortion “up to birth” or “infanticide” in order to malign Democratic candidates as too “extreme” for voters <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=756cdd82541603c6067cec3a308c95a1dfc85295adac3833c9c5d833a8076135bb5d01df1f29256af8f1b022d91a5c6f0049231f4c474b48" title="before" style="">before </a>the 2020 elections.</font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Faukner is not shy about <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=7bd00616b8a3b0627fafb81b8921dfcaa77ad9d4ce9fd36bddc8461fe137347d4810eb1163f78abfd46763399c66486d814ec7e91385957b" title="boosting right-wing misinformation" style="">boosting right-wing misinformation</a> herself or <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=7bd00616b8a3b062db8600225e50aef256249d3911f93391007f91455cb160fd72b80e2de447482feb144ea1e3ba5ec01f5d233e48d8cbfc" title="allowing" style="">allowing</a> guests to advance the same without correction. When discussing abortion in particular, Faulkner has allowed members of Trump’s <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=7bd00616b8a3b062c58ac6353ca3d13edb7540f40acf3984c027b38c956bdabb8c51bfae15ec3db98ebacd09bd431d6a184d43dec85fa136" title="administration" style="">administration</a> and <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=7bd00616b8a3b06271b1349e7b843440e8977f3dfc60fc33f3143085bd5d965c116945deccbbbcb23b9bdcdb65d1c2fc907eeb6d4d1f1511" title="campaign" style="">campaign</a> to spread obviously false claims about abortion and abortion access.</font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most recently, Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s 2020 campaign press secretary, <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=7bd00616b8a3b062b8d5a621ac42c610e2f7dcf3b2dd17eb4d1d001cb1c50f8e7b76892d4c7d631d7f762607922bb0d58f84e8baae75f905" title="attacked" style="">attacked</a> Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg as not being a “moderate wonder” in part because he supports “abortion until first breath.” Faulkner did not dispute any of these inaccurate characterizations.</font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even if Faulkner isn’t the primary source of anti-abortion misinformation on her own show, allowing guests to promote these lies is <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=7bd00616b8a3b06215b738f00e4181943ecff82ebd0479f6d8f35d4a1caea3b86c531ae5e1107b11f9cd49f4555500cf30e46bd21995d357" title="dangerous" style="">dangerous</a> and obviously contradicts the network’s narrative that its “news”-side is distinct from the toxic opinion programming.</font></font></font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/4/headlines/us_gag_rule_on_abortion_silences_popular_radio_host_in_nepal" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243); text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" text-align="text-align" center="center"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">U.S. “Gag Rule” on Abortion Silences Popular Radio Host in Nepal</font></a></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 1119</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">s<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/senators-say-trump-may-have-violated-federal-law-by-pressuring-countries-into-opposing-abortion-rights/" style="font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" color="color" transition="transition" all="all" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" font-size="font-size" letter-spacing="letter-spacing">enators say Trump may have violated federal law by pressuring countries into opposing abortion rights</a></font></font></font></font></font></div><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/julia-conley/" title="Posts by Julia Conley" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Julia Conley</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Common Dreams</a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">November 1, 2019</span></font></font></font></font></font></div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The administration, charged Democratic senators, pressured 70 countries to support an effort “to deny resources and education that could help millions of women and girls around the world.”</font></font></font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 719 but 2011, many anti-abort and anti-immigrnt bills post TP wave</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2011/upending-constitution-outlandish-laws-proposed-state-legislatures" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2011/upending-constitution-outlandish-laws-proposed-state-legislatures</font></a></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this isn't nec tp per se, but emboldened by 2010 wave?</font></font></font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 619</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Abortion in all instances, including rape, is illegal in Honduras. Any woman who has an abortion, and anyone found to have helped her, can be charged with a crime and imprisoned.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Here’s the thing: Research from around the world has shown that when abortion is banned, women don’t have fewer abortions – they just have riskier ones, where they put their health, and sometimes even their lives, at risk.</div><div>
</div><div>No one knows exactly how many women and girls have clandestine abortions in Honduras, but one Honduran nongovernmental organization (NGO) estimated somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 abortions occur each year.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new</font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://news.littlesis.org/2019/05/29/these-are-the-millionaire-ceos-whose-corporations-fund-politicians-banning-abortions"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://news.littlesis.org/2019/05/29/these-are-the-millionaire-ceos-whose-corporations-fund-politicians-banning-abortions</font></a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://popular.info/p/these-six-corporations-are-financing" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Popular Information</a> recently published an important article naming <b>six major corporations that made substantial donations to the political leadership in the states that recently passed extreme abortions bans: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio.</b></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The six corporations are: AT&T, Coca-Cola, Aetna, Walmart, Pfizer, and Eli Lilly.</b></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> 2018, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made over<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/732717/000119312519070797/d679803ddef14a.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> $29 million</a> in his role. Coca Cola CEO James Quincey received<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/21344/000120677419000735/ko3422831-def14a.htm#compensation" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> $16.7 million</a> between base compensation and bonuses. Aetna is now owned by CVS Health Corporation. CVS CEO Larry J. Merlo made <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/64803/000120677419001240/cvs3508731-def14a.htm#ceopayratio75" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">$22 million</a> in 2018.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> CEO of Walmart, Doug McMillon made nearly<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/104169/000120677419001406/wmt3482341-def14a.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> $24 million</a> in base and incentive pay in 2018. Ian Read made<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/78003/000093041319000953/c93082_def14a.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> $19.5 million</a> as the head of Pfizer. Read left his role in January, but incoming CEO Albert Bourla will likely be on the same pay scale. Eli Lilly is headed by David Ricks. Ricks took in<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/59478/000005947819000146/proxy2019_def14a.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> $17.2 million</a> in base, stock, and incentive pay in 2018.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an indication that corporations may be starting to feel public pressure to distance themselves from doing business with states that have passed anti-abortion legislation, Netflix <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/movies/netflix-abortion-law-georgia-movies.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">announced</a> that it is considering pulling out of Georgia, where it films some of its hit shows. But as Judd Legum from Popular Information notes, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has <a href="https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1133715808125894656" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent;">given big</a> to state legislators who have pushed abortion bans.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whether it’s Netflix or the six companies discussed above, it is critical to know who leads the corporations whose donations keep anti-abortion politicians in office where they can push their reactionary agendas.</font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
<a href="http://www.alternet.org/human-rights/century-anti-abortion-attacks">http://www.alternet.org/human-rights/century-anti-abortion-attacks</a>
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-grand-jury-planned-parenthood-20160125-story.html">http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-grand-jury-planned-parenthood-20160125-story.html
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Texas grand jury investigating allegations of misconduct against <a title="Planned Parenthood" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/social-issues/planned-parenthood-ORNPR0000047-topic.html">Planned Parenthood</a> after the release of covertly-shot videos about the use of fetal tissue from abortions has instead indicted two antiabortion activists who made the videos, authorities said Monday.</font></font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Daleiden, 26, director of the Irvine-based nonprofit Center for Medical Progress, was indicted by the grand jury on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record and a misdemeanor count related to purchasing human organs, Harris County Dist. Atty. Devon Anderson said in a statement.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An employee at the center, Sandra Merritt, was also indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The grand jury was investigating recordings made in April at Houston-based Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, according to the district attorney's statement.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daleiden made recordings over a period of three years, using a phony name and hidden cameras to infiltrate members-only conventions of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. He released the first videos in July, arguing that they contained evidence of unlawful trafficking in fetal tissue.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Planned Parenthood has denied the allegations.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the recordings were released, more than two dozen states and five congressional committees began investigations. Most of those have been closed without criminal findings, and Republicans in Congress were unsuccessful in their attempt last summer to eliminate funding for the organization.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federal law allows fetal tissue to be collected and used, but not for profit. Medical ethics prohibit altering the timing, method or procedures used to terminate a pregnancy purely to obtain fetal tissue.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Planned Parenthood officials have insisted the videos were manipulated through selective editing.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After meeting for two months, grand jurors cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing, the district attorney said in her statement. She did not say what record or records the pair allegedly tampered with.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Monday, Planned Parenthood officials praised the Texas grand jury’s findings.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"These people broke the law to spread malicious lies about Planned Parenthood in order to advance their extreme antiabortion political agenda,” said Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As the dust settles and the truth comes out, it's become totally clear that the only people who engaged in wrongdoing are the criminals behind this fraud, and we're glad they're being held accountable."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials at the Center for Medical Progress did not immediately respond to calls and an email seeking comment on the grand jury findings.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Daleiden’s lawyers have argued that he is protected under the 1st Amendment as a self-described “citizen journalist” who believed he was tracking criminal enterprise.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a Monday opinion piece in <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/25/planned-parenthood-abortion-roe-v-wade-center-medical-progress-column/79154292/" target="blank">USA Today</a>, Daleiden insisted that the videos “show Planned Parenthood’s senior leadership partaking in a widespread and organized violation of state and federal laws forbidding partial-birth abortions and profiteering from the sale of fetal organs and tissues."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials in 11 states have cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing after investigating claims that they profited from fetal tissue donation, officials said, including Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Washington.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials in eight other states declined to investigate citing a lack of any evidence, including California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But several states are still investigating, including Arizona, Louisiana, Montana and Texas, Planned Parenthood officials said.</font></p><p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Nothing about today’s announcement in Harris County impacts the state’s ongoing investigation,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement late Monday.</font></b></p><p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton agreed.</font></b></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The fact remains that the videos exposed the horrific nature of abortion and the shameful disregard for human life of the abortion industry,” Paxton said. “The state’s investigation of Planned Parenthood is ongoing.”</font></p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">HINGTON — House Republican leaders on Wednesday announced a congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood, a day after anti-abortion activists released a video of an unsuspecting official from the organization explaining how it provides fetal tissue to researchers.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>nyt</div><div>
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</div><div>Echoing the activists’ allegation, Speaker John A. Boehner and other top Republicans suggested that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal parts, which is illegal if done for profit. But Planned Parenthood said that while it charges for expenses such as processing and transporting, it makes no money from the fetal tissue donated by women who get abortions. The official shown in the video repeatedly says something similar to two activists posing as biotechnology representatives.</div><div>
</div><div>The California-based group responsible for the video, the Center for Medical Progress, appears to have been started relatively recently. Its creator, David Daleiden, once worked with another anti-abortion group, Live Action, and he and Live Action’s leader, Lila Rose, who also promoted the video, are familiar to Planned Parenthood affiliates from previous undercover videos. Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Rose did not return calls and emails on Wednesday.</div><div>
</div><div>The release of the video and subsequent House investigation opens a new round in the partisan wars over Planned Parenthood that have raged since the Republicans took control of the House four and a half years ago. This time, Republicans running for president eagerly joined in, promising to stoke the furor, as anti-abortion conservatives took to social media to demand action.</div><div>
</div><div>Past battles provoked backlashes against congressional Republicans and against Mitt Romney, the party’s presidential nominee in 2012. But even before the video began circulating online, Republicans had moved to cut all money for Planned Parenthood and the Title X family-planning program from a spending bill awaiting a House vote.</div><div>
</div><div>“When an organization monetizes an unborn child — and with the cavalier attitude portrayed in this horrific video — we must all act,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement.</div><div>
</div><div>Four senior Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which will conduct the investigation, said in a statement that they would “get to the bottom of this appalling situation.” Two Republican governors ordered investigations in their states: Greg Abbott of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who is a presidential candidate.</div><div>
</div><div>Other Republican contenders for president condemned Planned Parenthood, including Jeb Bush, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry. Another candidate, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, drew the most applause during a campaign stop in South Carolina on Wednesday when he boasted of having defunded Planned Parenthood in his state.</div><div>
</div><div>A spokesman for Planned Parenthood, Eric Ferrero, said in a statement that the Republicans’ claims were “flat out” untrue, “but that doesn’t matter to politicians with a longstanding political agenda to ban abortion and defund Planned Parenthood.”</div><div>
</div><div>“Our medical practices and guidelines in this area are clear,” he added, “and we do this important work just like other high-quality health care providers — with full, appropriate consent from patients, under the highest ethical and legal standards, and with no financial benefit for the patient or Planned Parenthood.”</div><div>
</div><div>But the companies that acquire such tissue from Planned Parenthood can command high prices, depending on the processing required, given the demand among researchers.</div><div>
</div><div>“These tissues are very valuable for studying human development and finding out what makes it tick,” said Dr. Susan Fisher, who directs the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Program at the University of California, San Francisco. “Can we reprogram cells in the same way to repair disease processes? Can we have a better understanding of the sort of haywire development that accompanies some tumors?”</div><div>
</div><div>“A lot of women want to make these donations” in the hope that useful information can be gained, Dr. Fisher added.</div><div>
</div><div>The National Institutes of Health spent $76 million in 2014 on research involving human fetal tissue, and it expects to spend the same amount this year. Researchers at universities with medical centers that perform abortions may obtain fetal tissue there, but private companies also act as middlemen, obtaining tissue from abortion providers and selling it to researchers.</div><div>
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</font><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">, Cecile Richards, the 58-year-old president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, went before Congress to defend her organization. A few months earlier, the Center for Medical Progress, an undercover anti-abortion group, had released a series of doctored videos that purported to show Planned Parenthood illegally profiting from the sale of fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood denied the accusations, but outrage spiraled furiously among conservatives. Republican officials launched state and federal investigations, while presidential candidates and members of Congress called for defunding Planned Parenthood entirely, threatening to shut down the government if their demands were not met.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Riding this whirlwind of righteous anger, Republicans eagerly anticipated their confrontation with Richards. Yet when she came before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Republicans suddenly found Richards grilling them, not the other way around. “Mr. Chairman, you and I do disagree about whether women should have access to safe and legal abortion,” she said, staring into the eyes of Jason Chaffetz, the Republican from Utah who chaired the hearing. “At Planned Parenthood, we believe that women should be able to make their own decision about their pregnancies and their futures—and the majority of Americans agree. We trust women to make these decisions in consultation with their families, their doctors, and their faith, and not by Congress.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A week later, Chaffetz admitted that after formally investigating Planned Parenthood, he and his colleagues had been unable to find any evidence of financial wrongdoing. Eight states that launched their own investigations have also failed to produce any smoking guns. The absence of evidence, however, hasn’t deterred GOP-controlled state governments from attempting to cut funds for Planned Parenthood, or moderated Republicans’ demonization of the organization.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">These attacks, though, have only inspired Planned Parenthood’s supporters to rally to its defense. Three days before Richards testified, a progressive coalition delivered a petition in support of Planned Parenthood to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Senator Elizabeth Warren; it had more than 1.2 million signatures. On the day of Richards’s testimony, hundreds of thousands of advocates across the country organized rallies and Internet campaigns to demonstrate solidarity, in what would be Planned Parenthood’s first ever “National Pink Out Day.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The clout and moral credibility that Planned Parenthood has added under Richards’ leadership were evident this week, too, when Republican plans to use the budget resolution to defund the organization and curtail abortion rights largely came to naught. A unified Democratic Party was also able to derail GOP proposals to reduce spending on women’s health and family planning. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2016, the battle over reproductive rights will almost surely grow more intense. The Supreme Court is set to rule on two major cases: one concerning contraception coverage, and the other on abortion access. The latter, both sides agree, may be the most consequential case for abortion rights since 1992, when the high court ruled that states could not impose an “undue burden” on women who wish to end a pregnancy. State legislatures, which enacted 288 abortion restrictions between 2011 and 2015, will no doubt continue to test the limits of what such “undue burdens” really mean.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">2016 also marks the centennial anniversary of Planned Parenthood, an organization that has become the target of an anti-abortion movement that steadily grows more aggressive and violent. The FBI reported an increase in the number of arson attacks and vandalism incidents at abortion clinics in the wake of the Center for Medical Progress videos, and the president of the National Abortion Federation said abortion providers have seen “an unprecedented increase in hate speech and threats” since the videos were released. In late November, a man opened fire in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, injuring nine people, and killing three. After the shooting, the suspected gunman invoked the doctored videos, telling local authorities, “no more baby parts.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Richards, who has spent a decade at Planned Parenthood’s helm, toils at ground zero of the culture wars being fought across the country. Every day she is flooded with hundreds of hateful messages on social media, calling her evil, a Nazi, a monster, a murderer. In 2006, Jim Sedlak, the vice president of American Life League and one of the nation’s most ardent Planned Parenthood critics, predicted she would never last more than a year or so as Planned Parenthood’s leader. (A mere “place holder” president, he dubbed her.)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Yet ten years later, Richards remains self-assured in her post, guiding the nation’s largest reproductive-rights organization through the most politically fraught period it’s ever faced. She comes well-suited for the challenge. Richards brings to her role decades of experience in political organizing, and a career as a premier coalition builder across liberal America. She brings as well a strategic and moral vision that has impelled her to push Planned Parenthood beyond where it’s been, to lead more forcefully in the broader cultural and economic battles for women’s autonomy and equality.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">IN 2006, JUST THREE WEEKS after Richards started her new job as Planned Parenthood’s president, South Dakota’s governor signed a bill outlawing abortion, the nation’s first state-legislated ban. (It was soon struck down in federal court.) “Listen, the reason I took this job is, I feel like we need to go into the 21st century,” she told The Washington Post that year. “Clearly, with some folks in the country, we're going to get there kicking and screaming.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Hiring Richards, in many ways, signified a new moment for Planned Parenthood. The abortion issue had been growing increasingly more politicized and polarized since the mid-1980s. (In the 1970s, the share of pro-life Democrats actually exceeded that of Republicans.) The partisan polarization of recent decades first became evident in 1984, and by the 1990s, political scientists were noticing a new and statistically significant relationship between voters’ abortion attitudes and whom they cast their ballot for in elections.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The three presidents who preceded Richards came in with backgrounds in health care, nursing, and Planned Parenthood itself. Richards’s resume, on the other hand, listed years of experience in organizing, campaigning, and electoral politics. While Planned Parenthood had been inching toward political advocacy in the 15 years before Richards arrived, she came in prepared to steer Planned Parenthood to the front lines.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.8em 0px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Since undercover videos that captured Planned Parenthood staff discussing fetal tissue donations were released <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/planned-parenthood-sting-videos-explained" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">last month</a>, GOP officials in more than 10 states have clamored to launch investigations into the organization. On Tuesday, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley joined that group, ordering her state's health department to review the policies and practices of all abortion clinics in the state, including the three operated by Planned Parenthood.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.8em 0px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"These practices are not consistent with the laws or character of our state," Haley<a href="http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/29826606/gov-haley-responds-to-planned-parenthood-issues-in-letter-to-dhec" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">wrote</a> in her letter to the state agency tasked with regulating abortion clinics, adding that it "cannot allow an organization with broken internal oversight and a flawed corporate culture to behave the way Planned Parenthood has in other states."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.8em 0px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In the videos, recorded surreptitiously and <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/planned-parenthood-sting-videos-explained" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">released</a> by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress, Planned Parenthood officials talk frankly about the organization's tissue donation program and the costs associated with donating fetal tissue from an abortion. Though fetal tissue donation is a long-standing and legal practice in the United States, and has contributed to medical advancements like the polio vaccine, conservatives have used the videos to attack the health care organization, saying they provide evidence that Planned Parenthood illegally profits from the sale of aborted fetuses. And they've pushed for investigations to unmask this purported criminal wrongdoing.</font></p><center class="ebz_native_center" style="line-height: 25px; overflow: hidden; height: 0px; margin: auto; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 5px;"><div id="ebzNative" /></div></center><p style="margin: 0.8em 0px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But so far, those investigations are falling flat. Completed probes in <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/08/13/georgia-south-dakota-investigations-conclude-wrongdoing-planned-parenthood/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Georgia</a>, <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/14e6280c406a4d21920c5594107dfdc4/indiana-clears-planned-parenthood-wrongdoing-after-videos" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Indiana</a>, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/29/healey-mass-planned-parenthood-fully-compliant-with-law/Fc6pYYrY1ONGQvRTEqkWHK/story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Massachusetts</a>, and South Dakota have spent thousands in taxpayer money but turned up no evidence that Planned Parenthood is trafficking in the sale of fetal tissue.<strong> </strong>And in most of the other states that have launched investigations—including <a href="http://fox8.com/2015/07/16/ohio-attorney-general-orders-probe-of-planned-parenthood/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Ohio</a>, <a href="http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2015/07/20/ducey-orders-investigation-into-planned-parenthood-arizona" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Arizona</a>, <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/30/farce-strong-enough-word-describe-outrageous-planned-parenthood-hearing-texas-legislature/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Texas</a>, and <a href="http://www.startribune.com/apnewsbreak-no-kansas-reports-on-fetal-tissue-in-15-years/320951361/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Kansas</a>—Planned Parenthood affiliates don't even have fetal tissue donation programs, making it hard to believe the states will find any illegal activity related to the practice. In Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/07/bobby_jindal_planned_parenthoo.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">ordered</a> an investigation in mid-July, Planned Parenthood does not even operate a single abortion clinic.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.8em 0px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"In every state where these investigations have concluded, officials have cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing," Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/state-investigations-planned-parenthood_55ce0c00e4b0ab468d9d1490?q21n61or" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">told</a> the <em>Huffington Post</em>. "We've said all along that Planned Parenthood follows all laws and has very high medical standards, and that's what every one of these investigations has found."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.8em 0px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Not every governor has taken the bait. Democratic governors in <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/24/minnesota-governor-denounces-gop-grandstanding-planned-parenthood-attack-videos/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Minnesota</a> and <a href="http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/article_f1950b73-99ef-5033-82f1-0807ac6359f1.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">Virginia</a> have rejected state legislators' pleas to look into the group, saying they won't waste time investigating programs that don't exist in their states.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.8em 0px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"As far as I'm concerned, there's no basis for an investigation at taxpayer expense into a private nonprofit organization that has stated they don't engage in those practices," Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton told local reporters after he received a letter from GOP lawmakers asking him to take action.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.8em 0px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Other states have taken another approach since the release of the videos: Governors in Alabama and Arkansas, along with Louisiana's Jindal, have <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/states-can-t-end-medicaid-funding-of-planned-parenthood-20150817" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">moved</a> to block Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, which they may not be able to do under federal law. Meanwhile, public opinion of the organization remains high. A recent <em>NBC News/Wall Street Journal</em> <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/how-public-views-planned-parenthood-nra-n403451" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0);">poll</a> found that despite weeks of bad news, Planned Parenthood is still more popular than every major 2016 presidential contender, the NRA, and the Supreme Court.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">hillary punked?</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div class="entry-content" style="border: 0px; margin: 1.5em 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lawmakers have used the videos to justify calling for Congress to ban Planned Parenthood<a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/24/senate-fast-tracks-bill-defund-planned-parenthood/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">from receiving federal funds</a> for services unrelated to abortion. State lawmakers in Texas <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/30/farce-strong-enough-word-describe-outrageous-planned-parenthood-hearing-texas-legislature/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">held a hearing Wednesday</a> to investigate the issue, even though Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas don’t currently collect fetal tissue for donation in medical research. Lawmakers across the country have compared Planned Parenthood to everything <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/29/nationwide-anti-choice-ralliers-liken-planned-parenthood-crack-dealers-auschwitz/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">from drug dealers to Nazis</a>.</font></p><p style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Elected officials need to listen to the public outcry for an immediate moratorium on Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding while the 10 state investigations and 3 Congressional committees determine the full extent of Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby parts.” <a href="http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2015/07/planned-parenthood-vp-says-fetuses-may-come-out-intact-agrees-payments-specific-to-the-specimen/" rel="external" title="(Open in new tab) " class="ext-link" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Daleiden said in a statement</a>.</font></p><p style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Reproductive rights advocates, however, have called the videos a “smear campaign” and harmful to women seeking abortion care. “To the right, they want to stamp out abortion by stamping out Planned Parenthood. But what they really want is to stamp out our ability to make the most personal, private decisions about our lives. They are using the latest campaign to shut down Planned Parenthood to do just that,” <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/07/12895/attack-planned-parenthood-view-inside-alec" rel="external" title="(Open in new tab) " class="ext-link" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> Wisconsin Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) in an op-ed for the Center for Media and Democracy’s <em style="border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">PR Watch.</em></font></p><p style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Questions also have been raised about <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/20/daleiden-group-routinely-used-alcohol-pry-information-targets/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">CMP’s deceptive tactics</a>, <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/17/group-behind-planned-parenthood-attack-anti-choice-radicals/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">ideological agenda</a>, and<a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/17/board-member-behind-planned-parenthood-video-close-ties-abortion-clinic-violence/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">connections to radical and violent anti-choice activists</a>.</font></p><p style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/28/exclusive-faces-fake-names-people-behind-planned-parenthood-attack-videos/" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">An <i>RH Reality Check</i> investigation</a> found that Daleiden and his associates may have violated California and federal laws—including forgery, credit card fraud, and identity theft—when filming the videos.</font></p></div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div class="headline" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="node-title"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">What the Planned Parenthood Hoax Really Proves: Right-Wing Extremists Have No Qualms About Destroying Peoples’ Lives</font></h1></div><div class="byline story" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><em>By</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/bob-cesca">Bob Cesca</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[1]</span></em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>/<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.salon.com/">Salon</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[2]</span></span></span></span></font></div><div class="story-date" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><em>July 18, 2015</em></font></div><div class="top-tools" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="left"><div class="the_body body_story clearfix" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In the video, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, is seen eating salad and drinking a glass of red wine as she discusses what the selectively edited video would lead us to believe is the process of acquiring intact organs from aborted fetuses and then selling them to buyers. Nucatola describes the most desirable organs, as well as the admittedly disturbing manner by which the fetuses are aborted in a way that doesn’t damage the organs that are to be harvested. She also appears to discuss the prices that buyers pay for a particular fetal organ.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As we’ve seen with similar “gotcha!” videos, this one completely misrepresents what Nucatola was discussing, and numerous sites have almost too-easily debunked just about every claim. (Full debunkery <a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/44832_The_Huge_Right_Wing_Anti-Choice_Fake_Outrage_of_the_Day">here</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[3]</span>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/07/14/attack-on-planned-parenthood-3-deceptive-edits/204419">here</a><span class="print-footnote">[4]</span>, <a href="http://wonkette.com/591066/why-is-planned-parenthood-selling-your-babby-for-scrap-oh-right-its-not">here</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[5]</span> and <a href="http://m.snopes.com/pp-baby-parts-sale/">here</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[6]</span>.) It turns out, Nucatola wasn’t discussing the illegal black market sale of fetal organs, but instead the perfectly legal donation of the organs to biomedical research laboratories that use the organs to help save lives. The price range of the organs described by Nucatola is, in reality, the reimbursed expenses accrued in the delivery of the specimens. (Which makes sense: $30 to $100 is hilariously below the going rate for human organs.) Furthermore, the video was produced by an anti-choice pop-up outfit called the Center for Medical Progress, which not only claimed that this one video required three years of research, but which also has ties to known video fraudster James O’Keefe.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Yet as rapidly as the video was resoundingly debunked as a fraud, it wasn’t fast enough to catch up with the zealous haste of the lies.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As soon as the video hit The Daily Caller and The Drudge Report, it was pretty much game over for the already beleaguered Planned Parenthood. Social media immediately erupted with garment rending and all varieties of unhinged screeching over what too many gullible viewers perceived as the ultimate smoking gun indictment of the organization. Anyone pointing out the obviously deceptive editing and the false claims made by the video were attacked as ghouls, Nazis and baby-killers.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The intensity of the outrage closely matched the degree of the flimflam. Anti-choice activists wanted desperately to believe the video was an accurate representation of what Planned Parenthood is up to behind the scenes, so they overlooked the obvious scare-edits and manipulative soundtrack. Clinically speaking, the video is cleverly produced, even though it’s really easy to make abortion sound creepy. That said, it flagrantly exploits the worst and most ignorant aspects of social media: the utter lack of critical viewing, the impulse to rapidly retweet clickbait without reading, and especially the internet’s torch-and-pitchfork mob justice.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On the Tuesday edition of <a href="http://www.bobcesca.com/">my podcast</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[7]</span>, I predicted that in addition to the radical far-right mob, the video would also be accepted at face value by A-list Republicans and especially the congressional GOP. And why not? It’s happened before. Congress buried ACORN based on a provably fake video. Planned Parenthood has been relentlessly de-funded due to previously fraudulent videos. Indeed, members of the most powerful governing body in the world spoke on-the-record from the floor of both the House and Senate and permanently attached their names to more than one egregiously fake smear video. Legislation was passed and livelihoods were ruined because congressional Republicans were repeatedly duped by James O’Keefe and his acolytes.</font></p><div data-toggle-group="story-14018296"><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sadly, my prediction came true on Wednesday when Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/house-committee-to-investigate-planned-parenthood-organ-harvesting-video/">announced</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> they’d hold hearings on the video.</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“This video is abhorrent and rips at the heart. The committee will get to the bottom of this appalling situation,” the press release quotes Republican lawmakers Fred Upton, Marsha Blackburn, Tim Murphy, and Joe Pitts as saying.</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Again, taxpayer money will be wasted on an investigation into Planned Parenthood based on a video that was debunked within 24 hours of dropping. Even anti-choice Americans ought to be outraged by this total waste of resources. But they won’t be because now the “respected” members of an elite governing body of 535 powerful Americans have announced that this mendacious video is, in fact, “abhorrent” and “appalling.” So, now, the video is endowed with the legitimacy of a congressional committee.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Meanwhile, several GOP presidential hopefuls have <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/14/gop-candidates-react-to-undercover-video-of-planned-parenthood/">condemned</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="print-footnote">[9]</span> Planned Parenthood for the (misleading) content of the video.</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“The video showing a Planned Parenthood employee selling the body parts of aborted children is a disturbing reminder of the organization’s penchant for profiting off the tragedy of a destroyed human life,” said former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Today’s video of a Planned Parenthood official discussing the systematic harvesting and trafficking of human body parts is shocking and gruesome,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. [...]</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“This latest news is tragic and outrageous,” said businesswoman Carly Fiorina. “This isn’t about ‘choice.’ It’s about profiting on the death of the unborn while telling women it’s about empowerment.”</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">We seriously have to question whether any of these Republicans have given their bank account information to Nigerian princes with dubious Hotmail email accounts. I hate to be a Debbie Downer, Republicans, but guess what? Professional wrestling is fake and the Easter bunny isn’t real. Sorry.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Arguably the worst aspect of this scam video, beyond the harm it will do to reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood, is the reality that Dr. Nucatela’s life is all but ruined for the foreseeable future. At this moment, anti-choice extremists are likely fanning out around the internet, collecting damaging information about her; finding out her home address and contact information; discovering whether she has children and where they go to school; planning rallies outside her house; or worse. Based on wrongful charges, she now represents Enemy Number One for googly-eyed radicals, fueled by visions of aborted fetuses and the false impression of Planned Parenthood as the Walmart of black market fetus organs.</font></p></div></div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">nyt</font></div><div><div class="timestamp" style="margin-top: 15px; white-space: nowrap;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">February 2, 2011</font></div><div class="kicker" style="text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 15px; line-height: 1.4em;"><h1 style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.083em;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ANTI-ABORTION GROUPS STEP UP CAMPAIGN AGAINST PLANNED PARENTHOOD</font></h1><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><nyt_byline><h6 class="byline" style="margin: 2px 0px; line-height: 1.2em;">BY <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/erik_eckholm/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Erik Eckholm" class="meta-per" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ERIK ECKHOLM</a> AND <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/jennifer_medina/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Jennifer Medina" class="meta-per" style="text-decoration-line: none;">JENNIFER MEDINA</a></h6><h6 class="byline" style="margin: 2px 0px; line-height: 1.2em;">
</h6></nyt_byline><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><nyt_text><div id="articleBody"><nyt_correction_top><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;"><b><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/planned_parenthood_federation_of_america/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Planned Parenthood Federation of America" class="meta-org" style="text-decoration-line: none;">PLANNED PARENTHOOD</a> HAS FIRED A CLINIC MANAGER WHO WAS SEEN ON VIDEOTAPE ADVISING A MAN POSING AS A SEX TRAFFICKER, AND ANTI-<a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/surgery/abortion/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Abortion." class="meta-classifier" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ABORTION</a> GROUPS SEIZED ON THE EPISODE TO STEP UP THEIR CAMPAIGN TO CUT OFF PUBLIC FINANCING FOR THE ORGANIZATION.</b></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">THE MANAGER WAS VIDEOTAPED COVERTLY IN A CLINIC IN PERTH AMBOY, N.J., BY ACTORS WORKING FOR AN ANTI-ABORTION GROUP, <a title="Live Action web site that includes new undercover videotape." href="http://liveaction.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">LIVE ACTION</a>. THE MANAGER GAVE ADVICE ON HOW TO GET MEDICAL CARE FOR UNDER-AGE PROSTITUTES. THE TAPE’S RELEASE ON TUESDAY EMBARRASSED PLANNED PARENTHOOD, WHICH PROVIDES CONTRACEPTIVES, GYNECOLOGICAL CARE, <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Cancer." class="meta-classifier" style="text-decoration-line: none;">CANCER</a> SCREENING AND ABORTIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY, MAINLY TO LOW-INCOME WOMEN.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">THE <a href="http://www.plannedparenthood.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA</a> SAID THAT IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE “HIGHLY UNUSUAL” VISIT, ITS AFFILIATE HAD NOTIFIED PROSECUTORS.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">THE ORGANIZATION SAID LAST WEEK THAT PEOPLE CLAIMING TO BE SEX TRAFFICKERS VISITED AT LEAST 12 OF ITS CLINICS IN SIX STATES IN JANUARY AND THAT IT HAD CONCLUDED THAT THE VISITS WERE A HOAX BY LIVE ACTION. BUT PLANNED PARENTHOOD OFFICIALS EXPRESSED DISMAY AT THE STATEMENTS OF THE OFFICE MANAGER IN THE VIDEOTAPE, AND FIRED HER ON TUESDAY NIGHT.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">“WE WERE PROFOUNDLY SHOCKED WHEN WE VIEWED THE VIDEOTAPE,” PHYLLIS KINSLER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE AGENCY’S CENTRAL NEW JERSEY BRANCH, SAID IN A STATEMENT. MS. KINSLER SAID THE TAPE “DEPICTED AN EMPLOYEE OF ONE OF OUR HEALTH CENTERS BEHAVING IN A REPUGNANT MANNER THAT IS INCONSISTENT WITH OUR STANDARDS OF CARE AND IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">STUART SCHEAR, VICE PRESIDENT FOR COMMUNICATIONS OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION, SAID IN AN INTERVIEW ON WEDNESDAY THAT PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAD “ZERO TOLERANCE” FOR UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR AND THAT THE BEHAVIOR FILMED IN THE VIDEO WAS “VERY ISOLATED.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">“WE CANNOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE BIGGER PICTURE THAT WE HAVE OPPONENTS WHO ARE IN MANY CASES OPPOSED TO <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/birth-control-and-family-planning/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Birth Control and Family Planning." class="meta-classifier" style="text-decoration-line: none;">BIRTH CONTROL</a>, HONEST SEX EDUCATION AND LEGAL ABORTION, AND ARE COORDINATING WITH ALLIES ON CAPITOL HILL TO DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD,” MR. SCHEAR SAID.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">ON WEDNESDAY, A LARGE NUMBER OF ANTI-ABORTION GROUPS INCLUDING LIVE ACTION ANNOUNCED A NEW CAMPAIGN CALLED “<a href="http://www.exposeplannedparenthood.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EXPOSE PLANNED PARENTHOOD</a>,” TIED TO THE VIDEOTAPE, WHICH WILL PROMOTE A BILL NOW BEFORE THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES THAT WOULD CUT THE MORE THAN $75 MILLION IN FEDERAL MONEY THAT PLANNED PARENTHOOD AFFILIATES RECEIVE EACH YEAR FOR FAMILY PLANNING.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">FEDERAL COMPENSATION FOR ABORTION IS ALREADY OUTLAWED, BUT CONSERVATIVE GROUPS ATTACK PLANNED PARENTHOOD FOR INCLUDING ABORTIONS AMONG ITS SERVICES.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">SOME CRITICS GO FURTHER. IN THE VIDEOTAPE AND SOME PREVIOUS INCIDENTS, PLANNED PARENTHOOD OFFICIALS “COLLABORATED WITH THE EXPLOITATION OF YOUNG GIRLS,” SAID MARJORIE DANNENFELSER, PRESIDENT OF <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/susan_b_anthony/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Susan B. Anthony." class="meta-per" style="text-decoration-line: none;">SUSAN B. ANTHONY</a> LIST, AN ANTI-ABORTION GROUP THAT IS HELPING TO ORGANIZE THE DE-FINANCING CAMPAIGN, IN AN INTERVIEW WEDNESDAY. “THEY DON’T HAVE INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS TO PREVENT THIS.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">MR. SCHEAR OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD SAID THAT ABORTION ACCOUNTS FOR ONLY 3 PERCENT OF THE ORGANIZATION’S HEALTH SERVICES AND THAT THE FEDERAL MONEY UNDER ATTACK GOES TOWARD FAMILY PLANNING AND <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/preventive-health-care/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Preventive health care." class="meta-classifier" style="text-decoration-line: none;">PREVENTIVE HEALTH CARE</a> FOR WOMEN, “INCLUDING MANY LOW-INCOME WOMEN WHO HAVE RELIED ON OUR SERVICES FOR DECADES.” HE SAID THAT PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND AFFILIATES RECEIVED A TOTAL OF ABOUT $363 MILLION A YEAR FROM FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS COMBINED.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>THE VIDEO WAS PRODUCED BY 22-YEAR-OLD LILA ROSE, WHO RUNS LIVE ACTION.</b> IT SHOWS A WOMAN IDENTIFIED AS AMY WOODRUFF, THE OFFICE MANAGER, RESPONDING TO AN UNSEEN MAN AND WOMAN. THE MAN SAYS HE IS INVOLVED IN SEX WORK AND WANTS TO BRING GIRLS, SOME ONLY 14 OR 15 AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, FOR MEDICAL EXAMS.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">THE MANAGER SAYS THAT 14-YEAR-OLD GIRLS SHOULD NOT ADMIT THEIR AGES, BECAUSE DOING SO TRIGGERS EXTRA REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. “FOR THE MOST PART, WE WANT AS LITTLE INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE,” SHE SAYS. ASKED IF THE GIRLS CAN OBTAIN ABORTIONS, THE MANAGER REPLIES THAT IF THEY ARE UNDER 15, THEY SHOULD GO TO ANOTHER CLINIC WHERE “THEIR PROTOCOLS ARE NOT AS STRICT AS OURS.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">THE NEW VIDEO RESEMBLES <a title="Times article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/us/politics/16acorn.html?scp=1&sq=Conservatives%20Draw%20Blood%20From%20Acorn,%20Favored%20Foe&st=cse" style="text-decoration-line: none;">THOSE MADE IN 2009 BY A CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST, JAMES O’KEEFE, IN WHICH EMPLOYEES OF THE COMMUNITY GROUP ACORN GAVE TAX ADVISE TO A MAN POSING AS A PIMP</a>.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">MS. ROSE WORKED IN THE PAST WITH MR. O’KEEFE ON UNDERCOVER VIDEOS IN PLANNED PARENTHOOD OFFICES BUT SAYS SHE HAS NOT WORKED WITH HIM IN RECENT YEARS. HE IS SERVING THREE YEARS’ PROBATION AFTER BEING ARRESTED FOR ENTERING THE NEW ORLEANS OFFICE OF SENATOR MARY LANDRIEU UNDER FALSE PRETENSES, WITH THE PURPOSE OF COMMITTING A FELONY.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;"><a title="Times article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/politics/27landrieu.html?ref=jamesokeefe" style="text-decoration-line: none;">IN A STATEMENT ON WEDNESDAY, MS. ROSE INDICATED THAT HER GROUP HAD OTHER DAMAGING MATERIALS. “SOON, WE WILL BE RELEASING MORE EVIDENCE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS AND THE PUBLIC SHOWING THAT PLANNED PARENTHOOD IS WILLING TO AID AND ABET SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF MINORS AND YOUNG WOMEN,” SHE SAID.</a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;"><a title="Times article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/politics/27landrieu.html?ref=jamesokeefe" style="text-decoration-line: none;">LILA ROSE’S VIDEOS FIRST MADE HEADLINES IN 2007, WHEN, AS A FRESHMAN AT THE </a><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_california/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the University of California." class="meta-org" style="text-decoration-line: none;">UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES</a>, SHE WENT UNDERCOVER TO AN ABORTION CLINIC IN CALIFORNIA AND TOLD WORKERS THAT SHE WAS 15 YEARS OLD AND PREGNANT BY A 23-YEAR-OLD MAN. BY LAW, CLINIC EMPLOYEES SHOULD HAVE REPORTED THE INCIDENT AS STATUTORY <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/rape/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Rape." class="meta-classifier" style="text-decoration-line: none;">RAPE</a> BUT DID NOT DO SO.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">THAT VIDEO PROPELLED HER INTO THE EMBRACE OF ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVISTS. NOW, AT 22, SHE HAS ACHIEVED A SORT OF CELEBRITY STATUS IN SOME CONSERVATIVE CIRCLES — <a href="http://www.facebook.com/lilagracerose" style="text-decoration-line: none;">HER FACEBOOK UPDATES</a> ARE FOLLOWED BY NEARLY 5,000 FANS.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">“WE WERE THRILLED WHEN WE SAW THAT SHE WAS DOING SOMETHING SO NEW AND EXCITING AND CREATIVE,” SAID REV. PATRICK MAHONEY, WHO RUNS THE CHRISTIAN DEFENSE COALITION, A WASHINGTON-BASED ADVOCACY GROUP. “THE FACT THAT SHE WAS NOT SOMEONE LIKE ME IN HER MID-50S, BUT A YOUNG BRIGHT STUDENT, REALLY ADDED TO THE IMPACT.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">MS. ROSE GRADUATED FROM U.C.L.A. IN DECEMBER WITH A BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN HISTORY. DURING HER TIME THERE, THE UNIVERSITY’S LIVE ACTION CHAPTER (ONE OF FOUR IN CALIFORNIA) ORGANIZED A “GENOCIDE AWARENESS PROJECT” IN THE CAMPUS CENTER. ACCORDING TO THE GROUP’S <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Facebook." class="meta-org" style="text-decoration-line: none;">FACEBOOK</a> PAGE, THE DISPLAY SHOWED “THE DISTURBING PARALLELS BETWEEN ABORTION AND PAST GENOCIDES LIKE THE HOLOCAUST AND RWANDA, AS WELL AS THE LYNCHING IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH.”</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">MS. ROSE DECLINED TO BE INTERVIEWED. BUT SHE USED <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/twitter/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Twitter." class="meta-org" style="text-decoration-line: none;">TWITTER</a> AND FACEBOOK TO CLAIM A VICTORY AGAINST PLANNED PARENTHOOD, TELLING FOLLOWERS THAT ITS DECISION TO FIRE THE OFFICE MANAGER POINTED TO “MUCH BROADER AND MORE ENDEMIC” PROBLEMS IN THE ORGANIZATION.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">MR. SCHEAR REPLIED: “WE’RE STAYING FOCUSED ON GIVING WOMEN THE HEALTH CARE THEY NEED AND DESERVE.”</p><nyt_correction_bottom><div class="articleCorrection" style="font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 2.8em;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;"><span class="italic" style="line-height: 22px;">THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN REVISED TO REFLECT THE FOLLOWING CORRECTION:</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;"><strong style="line-height: 22px;">CORRECTION: FEBRUARY 10, 2011</strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;"><span class="italic" style="line-height: 22px;" /></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">AN ARTICLE ON FEB. 3 ABOUT PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S FIRING OF A CLINIC MANAGER WHO WAS SEEN ON VIDEOTAPE ADVISING A MAN POSING AS A SEX TRAFFICKER REFERRED INCORRECTLY TO CHARGES AGAINST AN ACTIVIST KNOWN FOR MAKING SIMILAR UNDERCOVER VIDEOS IN THE OFFICES OF THE COMMUNITY GROUP ACORN. THE ACTIVIST, JAMES O’KEEFE, WAS CHARGED IN 2010 WITH ENTERING THE NEW ORLEANS OFFICE OF SENATOR MARY LANDRIEU UNDER FALSE PRETENSES, WITH THE PURPOSE OF COMMITTING A FELONY; HE WAS NEVER EXPLICITLY ACCUSED BY THE AUTHORITIES OF PLANNING TO TAMPER WITH THE SENATOR’S TELEPHONES. (THE ERROR ALSO APPEARED IN AN ARTICLE ON MARCH 27, 2010, ABOUT CHARGES IN THE CASE.)</p></div></nyt_correction_bottom></nyt_correction_top></div></nyt_text></span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
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</font></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Live Action</b> is an anti-abortion group that in 2011 produced a hoax "sting" video to target <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Planned_Parenthood" title="Planned Parenthood">Planned Parenthood</a>. The video was similar to those produced by conservative activist <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_O%27Keefe" title="James O'Keefe">James O'Keefe</a>, who in 2009 made heavily edited video targeting the community group <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ACORN" title="ACORN" class="mw-redirect">ACORN</a>. Live Action is run by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose" title="Lila Rose">Lila Rose</a>, who produced the anti-Planned Parenthood video. Rose previously worked with O'Keefe producing undercover videos of Planned Parenthood offices.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Live_Action#cite_note-0" title="">[1]</a></sup></font></p><table id="toc" class="toc" summary="Contents"><tbody><tr><td><div id="toctitle"><h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Contents</font></h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">[<a class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</font></div><ul><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Live_Action#Sourcewatch_resources"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Sourcewatch resources</span></a></font></li><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Live_Action#External_resources"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">External resources</span></a></font></li><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Live_Action#Contact"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Contact</span></a></font></li><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Live_Action#References"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></a></font></li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table><h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sourcewatch resources</font></h2><ul><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_O%27Keefe" title="James O'Keefe">James O'Keefe</a></font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Planned_Parenthood" title="Planned Parenthood">Planned Parenthood</a></font></li></ul><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">External resources</font></h2><h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Contact</font></h2><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Live Action
117 Bernal Road, #70-153
San Jose</span>, CA 95119
Web page: <a href="http://liveaction.org/" class="external free" title="http://liveaction.org/" rel="nofollow">http://liveaction.org/</a>
Phone: (323) 454-3304</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">References</font></h2><ol class="references"><li id="cite_note-0"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Live_Action#cite_ref-0" title="">↑</a> Eric Eckholm, Jennifer Medina <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/us/03parenthood.html?partner=rss&emc=rss" class="external text" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/us/03parenthood.html?partner=rss&emc=rss" rel="nofollow">Anti-Abortion Groups Step Up Campaign Against Planned Parenthood</a>, New York Times, February 2, 2011</font></li></ol><h3><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></h3><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Lila Rose</b> is a conservative activist and anti-abortion videographer whose work is promoted by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Andrew_Breitbart" title="Andrew Breitbart">Andrew Breitbart</a>. Her goals are to undermine organizations that provide legal abortions and de-fund <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Planned_Parenthood" title="Planned Parenthood">Planned Parenthood</a>. She is president of the anti-abortion group <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Live_Action" title="Live Action">Live Action</a>. Rose likened herself to Martin Luther King, Jr. in a CNN documentary called "Right on the Edge." At the November, 2009 Value Voters Summit, she said that as long as abortions are legal, they should be "done in the public square," thus disgusting people into action. And then "we might hear angels singing as we ponder the glory of conception." <sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#cite_note-0" title="">[1]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#cite_note-1" title="">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#cite_note-2" title="">[3]</a></sup></font></p><table id="toc" class="toc" summary="Contents"><tbody><tr><td><div id="toctitle"><h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Contents</font></h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">[<a class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</font></div><ul><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#Colleague_of_James_O.27Keefe"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Colleague of James O'Keefe</span></a></font></li><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#Sourcewatch_resources"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Sourcewatch resources</span></a></font></li><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#External_resources"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">External resources</span></a></font></li><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#Contact"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">Contact</span></a></font></li><li class="toclevel-1"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#References"><span class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></a></font></li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table><h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Colleague of James O'Keefe</font></h2><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lila Rose is a colleague of conservative activist <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_O%27Keefe" title="James O'Keefe">James O'Keefe</a>.</span> As a UCLA freshman in autumn of 2006, she and O'Keefe came up with the idea of infiltrating clinics. Rose and O'Keefe, both told the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> that they were inspired by the work of Mark Crutcher, a Texas antiabortion activist who in 2002 taped fake calls to hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics around the country featuring women posing as pregnant minors.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#cite_note-3" title="">[4]</a></sup></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2006 Rose has carried out undercover "sting" visits at Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Bloomington, Tucson, Phoenix and Memphis. She makes hidden camera videos as she and a friend pose as abortion-seeking young teens who have been impregnated by older men. Rose's videos are then edited down to about boiled five minutes, and are enhanced with portentous music and fast cuts to heighten the drama. Rose them posts the videos on her website, LiveAction.org, and on YouTube.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lila_Rose#cite_note-4" title="">[5]</a></sup></font></p><h2><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sourcewatch resources</font></h2><ul><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_O%27Keefe" title="James O'Keefe">James O'Keefe</a></font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity" title="Americans for Prosperity">Americans for Prosperity</a></font></li></ul><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><h3><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">-----</font></h3><h3><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Stearns' Connections To Anti-Choice</strong><a href="http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201110070009">10070009</a></font></h3><h4><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong><em>Americans United for Life</em></strong></font></h4><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Americans United For Life: "The First National Pro-Life Organization In The United States."</strong> From Americans United for Life's website:</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Founded in 1971 as the first national pro-life organization in the United States, Americans United for Life (AUL) is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization whose vision is a nation in which everyone is welcomed in life and protected in law. [...]</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Currently, we are working with pro-life lawmakers to compose and pass legislation that would:</font></p><ul class="unIndentedList"><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Mandate standards for abortion clinics to protect the health and safety of women and correct often substandard conditions.</font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Protect the rights of conscience of all healthcare professionals.</font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Protect parental rights, ensuring parents and guardians are involved in medical decisions of children.</font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Protect unborn victims from criminal violence, including homicide.</font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ban all forms of human cloning.</font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Promote adult stem cell, cord blood and other forms of life-affirming stem cell research.</font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Prevent euthanasia and assisted suicide.</font></li><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Inform women of the health risks of abortion including the link between abortion and breast cancer.</font></li></ul><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">[Americans United for Life, accessed <a href="http://www.aul.org/about-aul/printpage/">10/6/11</a>]</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Stearns Launched Investigation After He "Was Asked To Look Into Planned Parenthood By Americans United For Life."</strong> According to the <em>Florida Independent</em>: "Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, has asked the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, for the organization's financial and policy records as part of an investigation into the chain of clinics. Stearns chairs a subcommittee on oversight and investigations in the U.S. House. Stearns was asked to look into Planned Parenthood by Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion rights group that put together a report with the aim of convincing members of Congress to defund Planned Parenthood." [<em>Florida Independent</em>, <a href="http://floridaindependent.com/50065/abby-johnson-planned-parenthood">9/30/11</a>]</font></p><ul class="unIndentedList"><li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Goal Of Investigation Is To Strip Planned Parenthood Of "All Public Money Now And Forever." </strong>According to the <em>American Independent</em>:</font></li></ul><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Conservative policy group Americans United for Life's stated plans to help defund Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) one state at a time were amplified Thursday with the release of a report citing supposed violations of federal-funding rules by the national family planning and abortion provider. <strong>AUL is calling for Congress to launch an investigation against Planned Parenthood, with the hopeful outcome of stripping the organization of all public money now and forever.</strong></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The majority of the allegations in this report are not new - many of the claims of wrongdoing date back several years - but they have been organized into deliberate categories and bolstered by a 144-page appendix that consists of financial and annual statements from Planned Parenthood since the early 1990s; documents including old court records and memos, as well as clandestinely recorded conversations between Planned Parenthood employees and Live Action members posing as minors. [<em>American Independent</em>, <a href="http://www.americanindependent.com/190019/anti-abortion-rights-group-offers-congress-reasons-to-investigate-and-defund-planned-parenthood">7/7/11</a>, emphasis added]</font></p></blockquote><h4><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong><em>Live Action</em></strong></font></h4><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Live Action Is A Self-Described "Youth Led Movement Dedicated To Building A Culture Of Life And Ending Abortion." </strong>From Live Action's website:</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>WHO WE ARE:</strong> We are a youth led movement dedicated to building a culture of life and ending abortion, the greatest human rights injustice of our time. We use new media to educate the public about the humanity of the unborn and investigative journalism to expose threats against the vulnerable and defenseless. [LiveAction.org, accessed <a href="http://liveaction.org/about/">10/6/11</a>]</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Rep. Stearns Cited Live Action Videos Purporting To Show "Planned Parenthood's Cover-Up Of Child Sex Trafficking." </strong>From a February 10, 2011, press release from Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL):</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In response to videos produced by Live Action showing Planned Parenthood workers willing to conspire in sex trafficking, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) joined other members in calling for the defunding of that organization. At a news conference today hosted by Live Action and Susan B. Anthony List, Stearns stated that he plans to call the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Kathleen Sebelius, to testify on taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and that organization's tolerance of sex trafficking and other criminal activities. Stearns is Chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over HHS, and the hearing will be scheduled soon.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood is increasing, rising from $337 million in 2008 to $363.2 million in 2009," said Stearns. "We have a $14 trillion national debt while running a deficit this year of $1.5 trillion - Planned Parenthood is an egregious abuse of taxpayer funds. Not only does this organization provide about one in every five abortions in this nation, its centers have also been caught violating state sexual assault and child abuse reporting laws, and it has encouraged young girls to lie about their ages to circumvent state reporting laws."</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>The undercover videos from Live Action expose Planned Parenthood's cover-up of child sex trafficking.</strong> In one, a Planned Parenthood manager coaches a man and woman posing as sex traffickers in how to obtain abortions and other services for child sex workers. "Taxpayers are demanding to know how their money is being spent and these videos answer how Planned Parenthood uses public dollars." [Stearns.House.gov, <a href="http://stearns.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=134&parentid=6§iontree=6,134&itemid=747">2/10/11</a>, emphasis added]</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Stearns Used Live Action Videos To Threaten HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius With A Personal Investigation. </strong>From <em>Politico</em>:</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On Thursday, Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns demanded that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explain the videos in which anti-abortion activists with the group Live Action pose as pimps and secretly record their conversations with workers at the family planning organization. [...]
Stearns threatened to ask the Department of Justice to investigate Sebelius if she refuses to answer questions before the Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which he heads.
"<strong>We're going to bring Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius, put her under oath in the spring and ask her to explain what is she doing about these videos</strong>," Stearns said Thursday, flanked by anti-abortion activists at a press conference on Capitol Hill, including the president of the group that recorded and released the videos.
"We're not going to wait for Attorney General [Eric] Holder to do anything," he added, as supporters clapped and cheered. "And <strong>if she lies, then we're going to ask the attorney general to investigate her.</strong>"
Sebelius, whose agency oversees grants to Planned Parenthood, has appeared before the Senate health and education committee, but hasn't yet testified in the GOP-dominated House. [<em>Politico</em>, <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49255.html">2/10/11</a>, emphasis added]</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Stearns Thanked Live Action For Research, Called For The Defunding Of Planned Parenthood. </strong>From a blog post by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) titled "Defund Planned Parenthood" on BigGovernment.com:</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Thanks to Live Action, a group of young people dedicated to strengthening the culture of life, <strong>we learn from undercover videos that Planned Parenthood is all too willing to ignore the law in promoting its services</strong>, among them abortion.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Working with Live Action, a man and woman posed as sex traffickers at a Planned Parenthood center and asked about abortions and other services for their child sex workers. Instead being reported for what appeared to be a horrendous sexual exploitation of children, the pair received information on how to arrange abortions for their child sex workers.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This just adds to Planned Parenthood's record of violating state sexual assault and child abuse reporting laws, and of encouraging young girls to lie about their ages to circumvent state reporting laws.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Although Planned Parenthood eventually ordered new training for its employees, I have a better solution - defund it. [BigGovernment.com, <a href="http://biggovernment.com/cstearns/2011/02/12/defund-planned-parenthood-2/">2/12/11</a>, emphasis added]</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Planned Parenthood Reported Potential Sex Trafficking To FBI After Visits From Live Action. </strong>From a press release titled "Planned Parenthood Informs Federal Authorities of Potential Sex Trafficking," released on January 24, 2011:</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>Last week, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) alerted federal authorities to a potential multistate sex trafficking ring. Over a five day period, visitors to Planned Parenthood health centers in six states said they were seeking information from Planned Parenthood about health services Planned Parenthood could provide to underage girls who were part of a sex trafficking ring.</strong> Subsequent to alerting U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Planned Parenthood learned the identify of one of those involved and believes <strong>these visits are likely a hoax by opponents of legal abortion seeking to discredit Planned Parenthood</strong>, which delivers preventive health care and abortion services to three million women each year.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Men, sometimes accompanied by a woman, have visited at least 11 Planned Parenthood health centers in six states within a one-week time frame. During their visits, they claimed to be involved in sex trafficking of teens, some of whom are in the United States illegally. These men appeared at health centers without appointments and said that they were seeking health services for themselves, but they quickly turned the conversation to the sex ring they said they were managing. </font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"When Planned Parenthood learns of an operation that exploits young women, we vigilantly work with law enforcement authorities to uncover and stop this abhorrent activity," said Stuart Schear, PPFA vice president for communications. "Planned Parenthood's top priority is the health and safety of our patients and the health and well-being of women and teens across the country, and we have been in contact with federal and local authorities to identify the persons involved in these visits." [PlannedParenthood.org, <a href="http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/planned-parenthood-informs-federal-authorities-potential-sex-trafficking-35888.htm">1/24/11</a>, emphasis added]</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>In Addition To Reporting Live Action Visits, Planned Parenthood Fired Employee Seen In Video. </strong>As reported by the <em>New York Times</em>:</font></p><blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Planned Parenthood has fired a clinic manager who was seen on videotape advising a man posing as a sex trafficker, and anti-abortion groups seized on the episode to step up their campaign to cut off public financing for the organization.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The manager was videotaped covertly in a clinic in Perth Amboy, N.J., by actors working for an anti-abortion group, Live Action. The manager gave advice on how to get medical care for under-age prostitutes. The tape's release on Tuesday embarrassed Planned Parenthood, which provides contraceptives, gynecological care, <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Cancer.">cancer</a> screening and abortions across the country, mainly to low-income women.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Planned Parenthood Federation of America said that immediately after the "highly unusual" visit, its affiliate had notified prosecutors.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The organization said last week that people claiming to be sex traffickers visited at least 12 of its clinics in six states in January and that it had concluded that the visits were a hoax by Live Action. But Planned Parenthood officials expressed dismay at the statements of the office manager in the videotape, and fired her on Tuesday night. [<em>New York Times</em>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/us/03parenthood.html?r=1">2/2/11</a>]</font></p></blockquote><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">nyt</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In the end, Mr. O’Keefe’s Planned Parenthood campaign — in which some of the organization’s workers were recorded accepting donations from one of Mr. O’Keefe’s characters who said the money should go to abort only black fetuses — forced Planned Parenthood to apologize in multiple states, though officials also complained that some tapes were “heavily edited.”</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Pranksters</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.salon.com/2014/04/01/the_despicable_rise_of_conservative_pranksters_race_baiting_conspiracy_theories_in_the_age_of_obama/</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The despicable rise of conservative pranksters: Race-baiting & conspiracy theories in the age of Obama</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">How Glenn Beck and James O'Keefe perfected a bizarre — and dangerous — new brand of conservative anger</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">KEMBREW MCLEOD</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The despicable rise of conservative pranksters: Race-baiting & conspiracy theories in the age of Obama</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Glenn Beck, James O'Keefe</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Excerpted from “Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The history of political pranks is littered with lefty characters. Conservatives, on the other hand, do not gravitate toward irreverent hijinks. One exception is James O’Keefe, a right-wing prankster who uses hidden cameras to stage encounters with his ideological enemies. At the same time that progressive organizations such as MoveOn.org were hailed for their savvy uses of online media, O’Keefe, Andrew Breitbart, and other conservatives employed similar DIY methods. O’Keefe’s provocations began in 2004 while attending Rutgers University. In a satire of political correctness, what he viewed as a pious sensitivity to ethnicity on college campuses, he launched a campaign to remove Lucky Charms from the dining hall. He secretly videotaped himself complaining to a food-service employee about the leprechaun on the cereal box. While the school official earnestly scribbled notes, O’Keefe deadpanned, “As you can see, we’re not short and green—we have our differences of height—and we think this is stereotypical of all Irish Americans.” While at Rutgers, he gained notoriety by organizing an “affirmative-action bake sale,” in which whites paid exorbitant prices and African Americans got discounts.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>In developing his craft, O’Keefe read Saul Alinsky’s ”Rules for Radicals,” the bible of many liberal activists. Rule Four especially inspired him: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” </b>He applied this directive in 2007 when he punked Planned Parenthood in an attempt to expose white liberal hypocrisies about race, abortion, and eugenics. It is certainly true, for instance, that some early-twentieth-century Progressives could be racist. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger is a women’s right pioneer, but some of her projects ran hand in hand with a desire to reduce the size of “undesirable” populations. Particularly unsettling was Sanger’s “Negro Project,” which was arguably a thinly veiled eugenics scheme. This sordid history has enabled conservative commentators to take the moral high ground by claiming that white liberals are the real racists. To dramatize this claim, O’Keefe secretly taped a phone conversation with a Planned Parenthood staffer, who was asked if his donation could be used to abort black babies (so to prevent his future son from being discriminated against through affirmative action). He was told the organization would accept the money, for whatever reason. Even though Planned Parenthood dismissed the tapes as “heavily edited,” the public-relations damage was done.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see also anti-abortion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">abortion914</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana Governor Signs Anti-Choice Bill as Missouri’s Last Abortion Clinic Is Set to Close</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana on Thursday became the fifth state in the nation to enact a six-week abortion ban, when Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards signed a bill that offers no exceptions for rape or incest. Meanwhile, Missouri is poised today to become the first state in the nation without a single clinic providing abortions, as a judge in St. Louis weighs a last-minute legal challenge to plans by state officials to revoke a medical license for Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic. On Thursday, St. Louis police arrested 17 activists at a state office building as they held a sit-in protest demanding a license renewal. Hundreds more protested outside, chanting “My body, my choice!” This is Kawanna Shannon, director of surgical services at Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kawanna Shannon: “State of Missouri, please keep your fingers out of our vaginas. Planned Parenthood also does vasectomies. Those men are able to come in with no hassle, no problems, no concerns, and they get their vasectomy free of choice, with no hurdles to jump over. And then a woman comes in, raped by a whole motorcycle gang, and you make her wait 72 hours to think about it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Five other states have only a single clinic offering abortions: Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia. Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak with Laura Kaplan, author of “The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kansas Supreme Court Rules That Abortion Is Protected by State Constitution</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A GOP Bill in Georgia Would Jail Doctors Who Perform Abortions in a Post-Roe America</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rachel M. Cohen — Mar. 11</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Five states have already passed a so-called trigger law, which would ban nearly all abortions if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/human-rights/century-anti-abortion-attacks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/satanic-temple-triumphs-red-state-fight-abortion-rights</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">outlaw birth control?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">he Kochs Make News in Wisconsin as Voters Threaten to Turn Races Upside Down </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Mary Bottari — The Kochs are going to bat for U.S. Senator Ron Johnson. What else are they up to in the Koch subsidiary formerly known as Wisconsin?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more >> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WAR on Voters: Big Money Streams into WI Supreme Court Race with No Disclosure </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Jessica Mason and Mary Bottari — Here we go again. Another dark money shell game in a critical Wisconsin Supreme Court race. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more >> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5/15</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> in Texas, a Republican lawmaker proposed an amendment so outrageous, that even some of his own GOP colleagues were repulsed. Andrea Grimes, with RH Reality, reports:.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler) put forward an amendment that would make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after 20 weeks, even if a fetus “has a severe and irreversible abnormality,” effectively forcing families with wanted, but unsustainable pregnancies to carry to term at the behest of the state and against the advice of their doctors or their own wishes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What would cause a lawmaker to want the government to inflict more emotional pain onto an already grieving family, in addition to adding a major health risk to the mother? Does he not realize a woman can easily die of sepsis by carrying a nonviable fetus?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schaefer said that suffering is “part of the human condition, since sin entered the world.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius Court Case</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Supreme Court is considering whether corporations have religious rights under the US Constitution. InConestoga, a kitchen cabinet manufacturer is claiming that the contraceptive care requirement of the new federal Affordable Care Act violates its First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. In response, we recently filed a powerful amicus brief before the Court in which we challenge the claim that corporations practice religion and have free exercise rights like people under the Constitution.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Free Speech For People Amicus Brief in Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius Court Case</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in several states, Republican lawmakers are sponsoring bills that would allow employers to use “religious liberty” as an excuse to do whatever they want – including discriminate against customers or employees on the basis of religion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Georgia's version of this religious liberty bill has already passed the state senate, but is running into trouble in the house, where even the speaker, a Republican, has expressed skepticism about the legislation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Progressive activists in the state are leaving nothing to chance, realizing that if the bill passes, the state could see a new wave of discrimination similar to Jim Crow-style restrictions on African Americans. Some women's organizations are particularly concerned that right-wing employers could, for example, fire women who've had abortions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Monday, four women – Megan Harrison, Lorraine Fontana, Emma Stitt, and Jessica Reznicek – sought an audience with the bill's chief Senate sponsor, Republican Josh McKoon. Not only were the four women denied a meeting with McKoon, they were arrested.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Friends Service Committee shared a few photos of the arrest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/gender/georgia-women-arrested-protesting-bill-would-let-employers-fire-women-whove-had-abortion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">history</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l3AB-x5aQ</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">--</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see also Birth control/abortion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">capt abortion914</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ala outlaws tho know unconst, hope scotus ~ roe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GA 6 wk heartbeat (SOS stole elction --> gov kemp, stacy a tweets connection)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana Governor Signs Anti-Choice Bill as Missouri’s Last Abortion Clinic Is Set to Close</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana on Thursday became the fifth state in the nation to enact a six-week abortion ban, when Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards signed a bill that offers no exceptions for rape or incest. Meanwhile, Missouri is poised today to become the first state in the nation without a single clinic providing abortions, as a judge in St. Louis weighs a last-minute legal challenge to plans by state officials to revoke a medical license for Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic. On Thursday, St. Louis police arrested 17 activists at a state office building as they held a sit-in protest demanding a license renewal. Hundreds more protested outside, chanting “My body, my choice!” This is Kawanna Shannon, director of surgical services at Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kawanna Shannon: “State of Missouri, please keep your fingers out of our vaginas. Planned Parenthood also does vasectomies. Those men are able to come in with no hassle, no problems, no concerns, and they get their vasectomy free of choice, with no hurdles to jump over. And then a woman comes in, raped by a whole motorcycle gang, and you make her wait 72 hours to think about it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Five other states have only a single clinic offering abortions: Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia. Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak with Laura Kaplan, author of “The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/3/clarence_thomas_cited_this_authors_book</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Justice Clarence Thomas sparked harsh rebuke last week after claiming that abortion rights can be traced back to the 20th century eugenics movement. He made the comments in a 20-page opinion after the Supreme Court declined last week to take up a provision of an Indiana law that bars abortions based on the sex, race or disability of the fetus. The decision keeps in place a lower court injunction on the measure. But Justice Thomas indicated that he supports the law, writing in his opinion, “Enshrining a constitutional right to an abortion based solely on the race, sex, or disability of an unborn child, as Planned Parenthood advocates, would constitutionalize the views of the 20th-century eugenics movement.” To make his case, Justice Thomas cited a book by Adam Cohen titled “Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck.” We speak with Adam Cohen, who has since refuted the justice’s claims. In a piece for The Atlantic titled “Clarence Thomas Knows Nothing of My Work,” Cohen writes, “Thomas is absolutely right that we need to remember our eugenics past and make sure that we do not make the same mistakes again. He is absolutely wrong that individual women making independent decisions about their pregnancies are the eugenicists of our time.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump and other conservative candidates have signaled that anti-abortion lies will be a core part of their 2020 playbook -- tactics that right-wing media are certain to amplify in order to fearmonger and rally support ahead of the election. Right-wing outlets have already been badgering Democratic candidates about their stances on abortion access and smearing them with sensationalized and inaccurate tropes about later abortions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right-wing media and anti-abortion groups have used these same manufactured controversies as part of a playbook for attacking abortion rights supporters. That playbook involves:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hounding candidates with anti-choice questions to generate an outrage-based news cycle. The campaign trail has given right-wing outlets more opportunities to hound candidates with sensationalized questions about abortion to intentionally generate outrage. Others in the anti-abortion media echo chamber then pick up these comments and spin them to fit predetermined anti-choice narratives. Those anti-choice narratives have been mostly focused on Democrats’ alleged support for abortion “up to birth” or even after.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Manufacturing fake “grassroots” support for anti-choice misinformation. Following the introduction of Virginia and New York’s recent reproductive rights measures, right-wing media promoted the narrative that Democrats are pushing an “extreme” position on abortionthat is not supported by their base. The Republican Party has adopted this approach as part of a 2020 election strategy at both the federal and the state level.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Using candidate comments about unrelated topics as a jumping-off point to criticize them about abortion. Anti-abortion groups and right-wing media have also tried spinning non-abortion comments from candidates to fit their stereotypes about Democrats. For example, in response to a tweet from candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) explaining her belief that “housing is a basic human right,” anti-abortion activist Lila Rose replied, “If housing is a basic human right, then I imagine you’re even more passionate about the right for a child to be born?” When candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) called Trump “a coward,” right-wing radio host Stacy Washington replied , “You believe in abortion up to birth, gun confiscation, open borders and limp-wristed governance. You have no room to call anyone a coward.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/05/28/study-right-wing-sources-dominate-abortion-related-news-facebook/223680</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2019, right-wing media have dominated abortion-related coverage with sensationalized anti-choice rhetoric and harmful misinformation. And on Facebook, anti-abortion misinformation is consistently outperforming all other coverage of abortion-related news.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Media Matters study of top-engaged U.S. abortion-related coverage on Facebook in the month of April found that 63% of links with the most Facebook interactions came from right-leaning websites, and 72% of the Facebook page posts with the most interactions came from right-leaning pages. Two anti-abortion websites, LifeNews.com and Live Action, made up almost 30% of viral links, and the two main Facebook pages affiliated with these sites made up more than a quarter of the most popular Facebook posts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Top-engaged content from right-leaning sources often pushed anti-abortion misinformation. Twenty-three percent of links from right-leaning websites reviewed in this study pushed for six-week bans on abortion (also inaccurately referred to as “heartbeat bills”) based on the anti-choice claim that abortion should be banned as soon as fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically by six weeks. Medical experts, however, say "cardiac activity isn't a credible measure of fetal viability." Right-leaning websites and pages also shared false stories about Democrats supporting “infanticide” (they don’t) and anti-conservative censorship by social media platforms (there is none).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sixty-three percent of the top links related to abortion news on Facebook came from right-leaning websites.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Media Matters reviewed 278 top links related to abortion news which collectively earned 13.6 million interactions on Facebook. Right-leaning websites had 175 links (63%), which earned over 8.6 million interactions (63.6%). Websites that aren’t politically aligned had 80 links (28.8%), which earned 3.8 million interactions (27.8%). And left-leaning websites had just 23 links (8.3%), which earned 1.2 million interactions (8.6%).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...much more, grafs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State efforts to recriminalize abortion are an echo of America’s eugenics past</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Between 1907 and 1937, thirty-two states passed laws permitting state…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-wiles-those-who-support-reproductive-rights-will-be-aborted-continuously-by-demons-in-hell/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">End Times broadcaster Rick Wiles dedicated last night’s episode of his “TruNews” program to praising Alabama’s radical new law that almost completely outlaws abortion in the state, and used the broadcast to warn those who support reproductive rights that they will spend eternity being “aborted continuously forever” by demons in Hell.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wiles blasted the “bunch of reprobates on the Supreme Court” who “defied the living God” by legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, declaring that “their carcasses will burn in Hell forever.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I believe that abortionists and the supporters of abortion—I believe that their punishment in the lake of fire will be to be aborted continuously by demons,” Wiles said. “Continuous, perpetual, eternal abortion.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This goes on for billions of years, hundreds of billions of years, zillions of years and it never stops,” he added. “You will be aborted continuously forever.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/when-the-american-debate-over-abortion-was-sane-and-why-that-changed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">People would be surprised by how much less toxic gender politics were in the 1970s than they are now.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mary Ziegler teaches law at Florida State University, where she holds the Stearns Weaver Miller chair in the College of Law. Her book, After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate, traces the evolution of American political dynamics surrounding abortion. In this conversation with Valerie Tarico she discusses how the debate became so polarized, why some abortion foes will not be satisfied until abortion is criminalized, and how advocates for women and healthy families might find common cause with others.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarico: I see abortion as a social good—like the guardrails right before someone’s life goes off a cliff. As a mom of two daughters, I sure want the rails there. But my dream is for my daughters and all young people to become parents when they feel ready so they can fulfill the promise of their lives and form families of their choosing and stack the odds in favor of their kids.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The intense emotional energy around abortion, both pro and con, makes it really hard to have this broader conversation about chosen lives and flourishing families—about young women and men pursuing their dreams or about healthy, cherished children raised by parents who aren’t stretched to the breaking point. So I desperately want to understand whether there is some way through this impasse. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziegler: People would be surprised by how much less toxic gender politics were in the 1970s than they are now. Given how much abortion opponents seem to have fixated on the overruling of Roe, I expected the conflict in the decade after the decision to be particularly bitter, but it wasn’t that way. What it means to be “Pro-Life” or “Pro-Choice” isn’t as static as it seems. Some people on both sides were doing surprising and productive things back then to make abortion less necessary. Even today, when we talk about how polarized things are, we’re talking about the movement leadership. But there are people on both sides who can’t join either movement because neither fits what they believe. Many of those active in the 1970s would have been shocked at how dysfunctional things have become at this point.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarico: How did we get to this point—with inflammatory rhetoric inciting violence against abortion providers and a wholesale assault on services that empower women to manage their fertility? We have Congress trying to defund everything Planned Parenthood does except abortion, trying to defund the very services that make abortion less necessary. It’s to the point that I sometimes call Cruz, Huckabee and the others “champions of unplanned parenthood.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziegler: People blame the Roe v. Wade decision, but the broad cultural wars against women weren’t an inevitable result of what the Court decided in 1973. In fact, the polarization took a while to develop, and it had more to do with money and politics than the ideology of people in either movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For much of the 1970s, Pro-Life groups were trying to get politicians to adopt a platform that opposed abortion, but instead both parties tried to appeal to people on either side of the issue. In the 1970s, it was possible to be a conservative Republican and support abortion access. It was possible to be in support of robust anti-discrimination laws for women but oppose abortion. If you look at Biden or Gephardt, for example, there were lots of ways public figures tried to navigate this politically. Ronald Reagan signed an abortion access measure in California. George Bush was at least nominally Pro-Choice. But in 1976, the Republicans recognized the potential of abortion to mobilize swing votes. By the 1980s, positions crystalized. What happened was a political party realignment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarico: Why a political realignment? How did opposition to abortion get bundled together with opposition to worker rights and opposition to government services and opposition to gun control? They don’t seem to go together very well. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziegler: Abortion opponents wanted Roe v Wade overturned. For a long time, they had fought for a constitutional amendment that would outlaw all abortions, but that obviously hadn’t worked. By the 1980s, it was pretty clear that the only way they were going to get anywhere was to change the Court, which meant they needed to change presidential elections. Marriage of the Pro-Life Movement and Republican Party was not inevitable and has always been troubled, meaning that there are people in the movement who are naturally conservative and people who are not. Some hold their noses when they vote Republican, hoping for judges and laws that they like.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarico: An “Obamacare simulation” at Washington University dropped the abortion rate to 75% below the national average by making top tier contraceptives available free of charge. Why can’t we at least agree on reducing unwanted pregnancy and making abortion less necessary? </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziegler: We could have done things to make abortion less necessary. There was a moment in time when that was politically possible. In the 1970s there was a big fight – should we be for the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Equal Rights Amendment, or better access to contraception? Some in the Pro-Life Movement made this argument: They were trying to ban abortion, but they recognized that women would still seek it out if they didn’t have alternatives. Politically, they can’t easily make that argument anymore because that would jeopardize the Republicans’ ability to stack the Supreme Court. But some people still feel that way. All Our Lives is one group that supports services and choices, except for abortion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarico: OK, so instead of Obamacare, let’s just talk about improvements in contraceptive technologies. In Washington State, the annual number of abortions has dropped from around 30,000 to around 18,000 without any increase in restrictions or decrease in access. The primary factor seems to be increased use of IUDs and contraceptive implants–also, Plan B (a.k.a., “the morning after pill”). And science suggests that all of the long-acting contraceptives and emergency contraceptives operate by preventing conception itself, rather than by booting out an embryo. Why aren’t Pro-Lifers lobbying loudly on behalf of better birth control?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zeigler: The idea of IUDs as abortifacient is like an article of faith—not something people are willing to re-think. Also, a meaningful group in the Pro-Life Movement is actually anti-contraception as well as anti-abortion. For the most part this is not overt, because it’s not politically expedient. Those in power in the movement today are more likely to be conservative on every issue. Some are anti-sex unless it’s procreative. This strand was there from the beginning, but it just wasn’t universal. Now, a lot of the power players are people who operate naturally within the worldview of the Republican Party.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But they don’t represent the whole movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarico: You keep saying that not everyone who opposes abortion is socially conservative to an extreme. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziegler: The Pro-Life movement is big and messy and divided. That’s likely to be true of any social movement, and there is no exception here. Starting in the 1970s and running through 2010, sociologists have studied those who were active in the antiabortion movement. A few patterns emerge from these studies. The movement was disproportionately Catholic and female in its early years, but that’s much less true now. Still, Catholics are disproportionately represented, and movement members more likely to be white, married, and college-educated than the population as a whole.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziad Munson’s 2010 research found that antiabortion activists often identify as Republicans, but their world view maps pretty poorly onto the standard conservative platform. More of them were opposed to the death penalty than you would expect, for example.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As an historian, I try to get at what people thought was motivating them. Whether or not individual objections to abortion harken back to religious influences, activists believe they have secular moral reasons. Some express ethical objections. Some people see the fetus at any moment in time as a child. Some people are just grossed out by abortion—motivated by disgust. Often they are people who found images of abortion disturbing without thinking through how the images had been edited. Not all of them are driven by opposition to female equality or sex or birth control.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarico: So is there any room for common ground here? Right now we’re stuck with terrifying rhetoric from politicians and constant threats against abortion providers that erupt into unpredictable violence. In some places, the only providers are people like Willie Parker or Warren Hern, who are so committed to abortion care as a calling that they are willing to risk their lives.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As clinics close, poor women who can’t afford to travel are being forced to bear children they don’t want and can’t afford. Last summer I wrote a piece titled, “Why I’m Pro-Abortion not Just Pro-Choice” and it went viral. Amelia Bonow’s spontaneous hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion erupted into an international Twitter storm. In other words, as the Right ramps up, people on the Left are ramping up too. Based on the past, what would you say about how we might get beyond the current impasse? </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziegler: The common ground would lie in reducing the need for abortion, and in promoting the wellbeing of women and families. You would find some people in the movement that you can talk to and some that you can’t. In 2015, the Supreme Court decided a case about whether federal civil rights law ever requires employers to accommodate women who need work modifications during pregnancy. The case involved Peggy Young, a woman who worked at United Parcel Service and sought the same accommodations the company already provided for people injured on the job. We associate the fight against pregnancy discrimination with feminists, but below the radar Pro-Life groups submitted amicus briefs arguing for more accommodations when Young’s case went before the Supreme Court. The Republican Party is generally against anti-discrimination protections, so if you want to prevent or reduce abortion that way, but are aligned with the party, your political allies would say that’s inappropriate. Even so, there is still some willingness to push for those things.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kos</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump returned over the weekend to what CNN accurately described as his “incendiary falsehood” that parents and doctors are “executing” newborn babies. Trump’s brazen lie came in response to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers saying that he would veto a Republican “born alive” bill, one of the latest Republican efforts to use legislation to spread lies about abortion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Trump, “The baby is born. The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby. I don't think so.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No, I damn well don’t think so, because it’s a lie.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In reality, what happens on some heartbreaking occasions is that a fetus has abnormalities so severe as to mean certain, often painful death—conditions “not compatible with life,” as writer Dana Zirlott described being told.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In humane states, when this is discovered before birth, women have the option to have a second- or third-term abortion and spare themselves and their children the misery of labor and delivery and a painful death. The decisions that Trump and Republicans want to deny women are first having that abortion when abnormalities are discovered and then choosing to allow their dying babies to die quickly and in peace. Instead, they want to force women and their doctors to subject dying newborns to further horrific medical intervention, to needles and lights and loud voices and scalpels and machines that will only prolong the inevitable, only prolong their pain.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read More</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha: trump admin rtwing will sacrifice legis to help women over ideological purity NRA guns domestic violence and here:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/how-the-trump-pence-administrations-pro-life-agenda-is-killing-thousands-in-the-us-and-globally/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">title 9 ct ~? also </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GOODMAN: I wanted to ask about the global gag rule. Shortly after his inauguration in January 2017, President Trump reinstated this controversial global gag rule, the policy originating in the Reagan era banning U.S. funding for any international healthcare group that performs abortion, advocates for the legalization of abortion or even mentions it, even if those activities are funded by non-U.S. money. Then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer commented on that decision.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Bill Banning Most Abortions Becomes Law In Ohio</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WOSU 89.7 NPR NEWS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">April 11, 2019 • The ACLU of Ohio and other organizations that advocate for abortion rights will sue to block the law, one of most restrictive in the country. "We're counting on [a lawsuit]," say the law's supporters.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Georgia legislature sends 6-week abortion ban to governor to sign into law</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MAR 29, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are many reasons that Fox News’ false dichotomy between the network’s so-called “news” and “opinion” divisions is laughable, but there is perhaps no clearer indication than the sheer amount of anti-abortion misinformation spread by both "opinion" and “straight news” personalities alike.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the Democratic National Committee announced that Fox News would not be hosting any of this year’s Democratic presidential primary debates, backlash from Fox’s senior leadership was swift, with officials imploring the DNC to “reconsider its decision” on account of the “ultimate journalistic integrity and professionalism” reportedly shown by some of the network’s hosts. As Variety previously reported, the network had already rolled out a messaging campaign to reassure wary advertisers about the outlet’s legitimacy, extolling the virtues of the network’s news hosts. This messaging campaign is merely a repackaging of the same inaccurate story Fox has been telling for years: Viewers and critics shouldn’t hold the blatant xenophobia, sexism, racism, and lies of the opinion side against the allegedly objective news team. But this recycled talking point further falls apart when it comes to anti-abortion misinformation spread by the network’s hosts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January, abortion rights measures in New York and Virginia sent Fox News and broader conservative media into a frenzy. Although both measures were attempts to protect abortion access should the Supreme Court overturn or weaken Roe v. Wade, Fox News hosts across the network’s news and opinion programs seized on the opportunity to spread sensationalized misinformation and attack Democrats for allegedly supporting “infanticide” or so-called abortions “up until birth.” Despite these inaccurate characterizations, Fox News devoted over six and half hours of coverage before the 2019 State of the Union address to falsely claiming that these state measures allowed “infanticide” -- a talking point that ultimately appeared in President Donald Trump’s remarks. In fact, Trump and Republican lawmakers are reportedly banking on using anti-abortion extremism to rally voters for the 2020 elections -- a strategy that was on full display during the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s no secret that Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity -- each a part of Fox’s volatile and increasingly bad-for-business prime-time lineup -- are all frequent anti-abortion misinformers. Although Fox has attempted to distinguish the work of Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum, Shannon Bream, and Chris Wallace from their colleagues, these "news"-side hosts have all pushed their share of lies, distortions, and misinformation about abortion and reproductive rights.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bret Baier</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although Fox clearly has a profit motive in portraying Baier as a straight news host, there is little to distinguish him from his colleagues on the opinion side when it comes to his abortion-related reporting. In Media Matters’ annual study of abortion-related coverage on evening prime-time cable news programs, Baier and his program Special Report have consistently been dominated by anti-choice talking points and inaccurate statements about abortion and reproductive rights.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notably, Baier hosted a 2016 town hall with Democratic presidential candidates and used the platform to recycle misleading right-wing anti-abortion talking points. On his program, in the same year, Baier inaccurately described a common abortion procedure as “dismemberment abortion” and misled viewers that a Supreme Court case involving access to contraceptives was actually about abortion rights. Baier previously invoked a longstanding right-wing media talking point comparing legally operating abortion providers to convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell. In 2009, Baier even went so far as to falsely assert that the Obama administration would allow doctors to be jailed for refusing to perform abortions. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Martha MacCallum</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beyond frequently hosting anti-choice guests such as Live Action founder Lila Rose and Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins, MacCallum seemingly makes little secret of her personal views on abortion and will often use sensationalized rhetoric when discussing the topic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even before MacCallum became a staple of Fox’s evening lineup, she was already a serial anti-abortion misinformer. In 2015, MacCallum attacked Planned Parenthood for allegedly using taxpayer money to support abortion care (the organization does not, as the Hyde Amendment bars the use of federal funds for abortion services). Like Baier, MacCallum also used a 2016 presidential primary forum as an opportunity to spread anti-abortion misinformation sourced from the anti-choice group Center for Medical Progress’ (CMP) deceptive videos attacking Planned Parenthood. Since MacCallum began hosting her own program, she has consistently promoted anti-abortion talking points about later abortion and Planned Parenthood. In 2017, MacCallum pushed several myths about the existence of so-called “sex-selective” abortion practices, even demanding a guest on her program explain whether it was acceptable “for someone to decide because they don’t like the sex of their baby to abort it at eight months.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shannon Bream</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whether appearing as a correspondent on Special Report or hosting her own program, Fox News @ Night, Bream has been a frequent source of anti-abortion misinformation on Fox. Despite representing the network’s so-called “straight news” contingent, Bream’s promotion to host her own program was celebrated by anti-abortion leaders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bream was a frequent promoter of CMP’s deceptive videos, even hosting the Fox News “special” promoting the group’s claims in 2015. In 2016, Bream touted “exclusively obtained” copies of letters from a House investigation based on CMP’s allegations -- letters received a full day before they were publicly released or shared with Democratic members of the investigative panel, in direct violation of congressional rules. Since then, Bream has repeatedly signal-boosted anti-abortion talking points and myths by spreading misinformation about abortion safety, letting guests make inaccurate allegations about Planned Parenthood without pushback, and citing polls commissioned by anti-abortion groups without necessary context to suggest a lack of public support for abortion. If there’s a talking point circulating around anti-abortion media and personalities online, it’s more likely than not that it will eventually surface on Bream’s program.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chris Wallace</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although Chris Wallace does not discuss abortion as frequently as some of his Fox colleagues, his invocation of so-called “partial-birth” abortion during the final debate of the 2016 presidential election is more than enough to disqualify the anchor from consideration as a fair and balanced voice on abortion-related issues. Wallace’s inaccurate and sensationalized question was then picked up by other right-wing media outlets and has since re-emerged in Trump’s current talking points about abortion. Wallace has also shown a propensity for repeating right-wing smears against Planned Parenthood, citing anti-choice videos attacking the organization well before CMP’s campaign of deception began.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It doesn’t matter whether viewers watch so-called "news" or "opinion" programming: Both are likely to contain sensationalism, outright lies, and harmful characterizations about abortion patients, providers, and procedures -- seemingly no matter the potential consequences.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox downplays report that Trump ordered officials to give son-in-law Kushner a security clearance</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AP 219</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-abortion bills: Odds good in GOP states, not Congress</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by DAVID CRARY, AP National WriterThursday, February 7th 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">South Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Cash reintroduces personhood legislation at pro-life event Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, inside the lobby of the Statehouse. The personhood bill stipulates life begins at conception and at that moment, has all the rights as any other citizen. (AP Photo/Christina Myers)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's call for a ban on late-term abortions is unlikely to prevail in Congress, but Republican legislators in several states are pushing ahead with their own tough anti-abortion bills that they hope can pass muster with the Supreme Court.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two bills proposing to outlaw abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, advanced out of House and Senate committees in the Mississippi Legislature this week. GOP Gov. Phil Bryant is pledging to sign either into law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Efforts to pass similar bills are underway in Florida, Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Ohio, former Republican Gov. John Kasich twice vetoed the measure; his successor, Republican Mike DeWine, has said he would sign it. In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee and the top two GOP state lawmakers say they support the measure.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Iowa passed a heartbeat bill last year that was struck down by a state judge on Jan. 22. In response, many GOP lawmakers are trying to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot that would stipulate there is no right to abortion in Iowa.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">South Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Cash reintroduces personhood legislation at pro-life event Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, inside the lobby of the Statehouse. The personhood bill stipulates life begins at conception and at that moment, has all the rights as any other citizen. (AP Photo/Christina Myers)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">South Carolina, in addition to a heartbeat bill, will consider a measure introduced Wednesday that would broadly ban abortions and allow the possibility of criminal charges against individuals who perform them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump, in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, cited recent controversies in New York and Virginia over late-term abortions, and urged Congress "to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in a mother's womb."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legislation to achieve that goal failed to win passage even when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. It has virtually no chance of success now that Democrats control the House.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump listens during the National Prayer Breakfast, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nonetheless, anti-abortion legislators and activists believe Trump has bolstered their cause with his appointments of conservative Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Abortion opponents foresee the possibility that the high court might either reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling establishing a nationwide right to abortion, or uphold specific state laws that would undermine Roe.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Indiana, four anti-abortion laws have been blocked or thrown out by federal judges since 2013. Activists believe they now have a better opportunity for success, thanks to Trump's Supreme Court appointees, and are promoting legislation that would outlaw a procedure known as dilation and evacuation that's frequently used for second-trimester abortions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mike Fichter, president of Indiana Right to Life, says the proposed ban is "the most aggressive legislation with the highest chance of surviving legal challenge under the new makeup of the court."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A similar bill is being proposed in North Dakota. Ohio has enacted a ban scheduled to take effect in March. Laws banning the procedure are in effect in Mississippi and West Virginia. Others are on hold in several states because of legal challenges.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In contrast to the anti-abortion momentum in GOP-led states, several Democratic-controlled legislatures, including Massachusetts, New Mexico and Rhode Island, will consider ways to protect abortion access in the event Roe v. Wade is weakened or overturned.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New Mexico's House of Representatives approved a bill Wednesday night that would remove a dormant criminal ban on abortion. The law has been unenforceable for 45 years because of the Roe ruling. The bill now moves to the state Senate. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has said she would sign it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New York has passed the Reproductive Health Act, which codifies rights laid out in Roe and other abortion rulings. It states that a woman may abort after 24 weeks of pregnancy if her life or health is at risk, or if the fetus is not viable.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andrew Cuomo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@NYGovCuomo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> In their attack on women’s rights, President Trump and his allies are intentionally spreading lies about New York’s Reproductive Health Act. Their goal is to end all legal abortion in our nation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Don’t fall for it. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/cuomo-roe-abortion-trump.html …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">801</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5:15 AM - Feb 6, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Opinion | Andrew Cuomo: Trump’s Assault on Abortion Rights Must Be Rejected</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The president and the religious right are spreading falsehoods about abortion laws to inflame their base.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nytimes.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,149 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Writing Wednesday in The New York Times, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., defended the law and accused Trump and his allies of "spreading lies" about it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Their goal is to end all legal abortion in our nation," Cuomo wrote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Activists on both sides on the debate are keeping a close eye on the Supreme Court to see if it's ready to curtail abortion rights.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The justices are expected to decide soon whether Louisiana can begin enforcing a law requiring doctors who work at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. It was passed in 2014, but has never taken effect.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this Jan. 7, 2019 photo, The Supreme Court is seen in Washington,. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Texas three years ago, but since then Kavanaugh replaced retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had voted to strike down the Texas law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In another case, officials from Indiana are asking the justices to hear their appeal of a lower court ruling blocking a 2016 law aiming to ban women from deciding to have an abortion because of a fetus' genetic abnormalities, such as Down syndrome.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma 119</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> the midst of a manufactured outrage cycle over recent state measures protecting or expanding abortion access, President Trump used an interview with The Daily Caller to further stoke right-wing panic with anti-choice rhetoric.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump's January 30 interview with The Daily Caller recycled many Fox News talking points on so-called "partial-birth" abortion, saying, "Do you remember when I said Hillary Clinton was willing to rip the baby out of the womb? That's what it is, that's what they're doing, it's terrible" Trump was echoing languagefrom Fox News' coverage of a Virginia bill that would expand abortion access.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unsurprisingly, this Fox News/Trump hybrid talking point is based on a lie. So-called "partial-birth" abortion is not a medical term, and the procedure it references was outlawed in 2003. Later abortions happen in the case of serious risks to the health of the pregnant person, a nonviable fetus, or medical necessity. Trump's latest comments are no more than another opportunity to sow misinformation and fearmonger about abortion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read this: There have been a lot of lies in right-wing media this week about abortion, including accusing people on the left of supporting "infanticide." Our team has put together a full debunk. The common thread through the lies is right-wing media dehumanizing people who are making these decisions, rather than even trying to understand the circumstances. Instead of ill-informed punditry, read this interview with someone that actually had a later abortion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ohio Republicans move to make childbirth mandatory — and lay bare the deep sexism that motivates the anti-choice movement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">crypto?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/abortion-foes-hijack-racial-justice-black-genocide-argument-particularly-dangerous</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-abortion activists are hijacking the racial justice movement in a craven effort to restrict the reproductive freedom of black women. It’s insulting and cynical and, if the reproductive rights movement isn’t careful, it just might work.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A recently released short documentary explores this disturbing trend, which has zeroed in on the black community with a false but darkly resonant message: Abortion is leading to black genocide.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This fiction relies on a false equivalence drawn between abortion and the various ways society fails to protect and value the lives of black youth.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To be abundantly clear, this argument is as exploitative as it is wrong.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The right and ability to access abortion and contraception are critical for black women, and the power of black women to decide for themselves when and whether they will have families strengthens the black community. But as the film points out, the argument is gaining momentum, and it is worth understanding why.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative movements co-opting racial justice language to use the black community as a political wedge is not new or surprising. Publicly released confidential documents showed that the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) strategically exaggerated and magnified black opposition to marriage equality in order to drive a wedge between the black community and the gay community during the height of the marriage equality fight. Similarly, when comprehensive immigration reform looked achievable in 2013, a white nationalist created the Black American Leadership Alliance (BALA) in an effort to manufacture black opposition to immigration reform.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These efforts rely on an unfortunate truism that social justice movements often fail to confront their own racism and try to erase racial difference or fetishize black intolerance as particularly morally objectionable.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the narrative began to emerge that the black community was more hostile to marriage equality than the white community, the LGBT movement responded with troubling comparisons, calling “gay the new black,” coining “the new Civil Rights Movement,” and lobbing racially charged accusations at the black community, which divided the movement and erased black LGBT people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reproductive rights advocates can learn a crucial lesson from these missteps. While the anti-abortion activists attempting to exploit the black community are disingenuous opportunists, we should not so easily dismiss the implications of racial disparity in abortion access.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Black women constitute 28% of abortions and 13% of the population. Because there is no racialized reason black women would have more abortions than anyone else, there are only two explanations why black women account for a greater percentage of abortions: either black women are more likely to have unintended pregnancies or they are more likely to have abortions that they would otherwise not have if circumstances were different.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Reproductive Justice advocates tell us, we must first consider the unique challenges that black women face and the forces of structural racism that can complicate their decision about whether or not to have children. This includes disproportionate poverty rates, unemployment or low wage jobs without health insurance and lack of access to quality health care.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When a combination of policies and structural racism make pregnancy more dangerous for black women, raising safe and healthy kids more difficult for black women and a social safety net less accessible for low-income black women, it seems undeniable that at least some of these abortions are the result of women who are confronted with an untenable set of options.We must face the difficult fact that coercive inequality results in some black women having abortions they do not, strictly speaking, want.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of course, restricting the options available to these women only exacerbates the problem.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If, all things being equal, some of these black women would have chosen to carry their pregnancies to term, then the answer is to address that inequality, not to further limit access.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But ignoring the problem also makes it worse.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Black women do represent an outsized proportion of the abortions in this country, and it is advocacy malpractice to pretend this isn’t concerning. Silence in the face of that fact is what creates the vacuum in black abortion politics that anti-abortion extremists will attempt to fill with insincere rhetoric about valuing black lives.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We must acknowledge that black women’s bodies have been subjected to violence, exploited and experimented on, and the reproductive rights movement has yet to advocate for an agenda that truly addresses this experience. This movement has been shaped by eugenicists, some of whom specifically advocated for abortion as a way of controlling the black population. Black women have been sterilized against their will. They have been coerced – through both physical and economic force – into abortions they didn’t want. Much of modern reproductive and gynecological health care and services, including contraception, were discovered and perfected by engaging in inhumane and sometimes deadly experiments on the bodies of black and brown women. And black women die at alarming, disproportionate rates during childbirth.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Acknowledging these uncomfortable truths divests them of their power and stops our opponents from using them against us. We must stop running away from the history of our country and, in some cases, our movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">age of trump</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rep-steve-king-introduces-federal-version-of-anti-choice-heartbeat-bill</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/new-texas-anti-abortion-law-could-jail-anyone-who-drives-woman-clinic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cruelty</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/gender/georgia-women-arrested-protesting-bill-would-let-employers-fire-women-whove-had-abortion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nebraska Resurrects "Justifiable Homicide" Abortion Bill</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A state legislator pushes a bill that's even more sweeping than the South Dakota proposal that sparked a national controversy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Nick Baumann and Daniel Schulman | Thu Feb. 24, 2011 1:01 AM PST</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just when abortion rights supporters thought they had beaten a controversial bill they believe would legalize the killing of abortion providers [1], it has cropped up again—this time in a more expansive form that has drawn the concern of law enforcement officials.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week, South Dakota's legislature shelved [2] a bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Phil Jensen, which would have allowed the use of the "justifiable homicide" defense for killings intended to prevent harm to a fetus. Now a nearly identical bill [3] is being considered in neighboring Nebraska, where on Wednesday the state legislature held a hearing on the measure.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The legislation, LB 232, was introduced by state Sen. Mark Christensen, a devout Christian and die-hard abortion foe who is opposed to the prodedure [4] even in the case of rape. Unlike its South Dakota counterpart, which would have allowed only a pregnant woman, her husband, her parents, or her children to commit "justifiable homicide" in defense of her fetus, the Nebraska bill would apply to any third party.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In short, this bill authorizes and protects vigilantes, and that's something that's unprecedented in our society," Melissa Grant of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland told the Nebraska legislature's judiciary committee on Wednesday. Specifically, she warned, it could be used to target Planned Parenthood's patients and personnel. Also testifying in oppostion to the bill was David Baker, the deputy chief executive officer of the Omaha police department, who said, "We share the same fears...that this could be used to incite violence against abortion providers."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baker's concern is well-grounded: Abortion providers are frequent targets of violent attacks. Eight doctors have been murdered by anti-abortion extremists since 1993, and another 17 have been victims of murder attempts. Some of the perpetrators of those crimes, including Scott Roeder, the murderer of Wichita, Kansas, abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, have attempted to use the justifiable homicide defense at their trials. Several of the witnesses at Wednesday's hearing cited Tiller's murder as a case where a law like the one Christensen introduced could have come into play.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For his part, Christensen insisted that his measure is not intended to target abortion providers. Like Jensen, Christensen claimed that his bill is merely meant to allow pregnant women to defend their unborn children without fear of prosecution. "LB 232," he said, "is really nothing more than an attempt to make sure a pregnant woman is not unnecessarily charged with a crime for using force to protect her unborn child from someone who means to bring harm to her unborn children." </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, as other lawmakers pointed out during the hearing, Christensen's bill, as currently written, would not only apply to pregnant women but to anyone who attempted to prevent harm to a fetus. "I think it opens the door to something unintended," said state Sen. Steve Lathrop. "I don't think you came in here intending to make those who provide abortions a target of the use of force," he told Christensen, "but I think it may unintentionally do that or at least provide somebody with an argument that they were justified in that."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not everyone is sure that the law's potential use in a case of abortion-related murder was unintentional. "If they wanted it narrow, they should have drafted it that way, and they did not," Alan Peterson, a lobbyist with the ACLU of Nebraska who testified at the hearing, told Mother Jones. "So I have reasonable suspicion that the intent was at least to create a possible broad defense for attacks on abortion providers."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I don't know how anyone knows my intent," Christensen fired back in an interview with Mother Jones.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christensen and proponents of his bill, including the anti-abortion groups Americans United for Life and Family First, argue that concerns that the measure would legalize violence against abortion providers are overblown. They say that since abortions are legal in Nebraska, the killing of an abortion doctor would not be permissible under Christensen's law. (Proponents of South Dakota's bill made a similar case [5].) But Peterson disputed this interpretation. He said the existing self-defense statute that Christensen's bill would amend is "not limited to situations where something is going on that's unlawful. It says the person who claims the defense believes that there's something unlawful. That's a subjective standard." A standard, he added, that might allow the killer of an abortion provider to use Christensen's law, if passed, to get away with murder.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christensen, who was first elected to the state legislature in 2006, has a history of advancing eyebrow-raising legislation. "Controversial bills don't bother me at all," he once said [6]. Recently, he has pushed a measure that would allow teachers and other school officials to carry concealed weapons on school grounds [7]. And in January, he introduced a birther-style bill [8] that would require presidential and vice presidential candidates to provide a "certified copy" of their "original long-form" birth certificates in order to be listed on the ballot in Nebraska. He's also floated a bill, similar to one introduced by Jensen in South Dakota [9], which would prohibit Nebraska's courts from basing their rulings on foreign law [10]—a measure that's part of a quixotic nationwide right-wing campaign [11] to ban Sharia law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christensen said that he was unaware that a justifiable homicide bill similar to his had been introduced in South Dakota, though it recently caused a national outcry after the possible implications of the legislation were reported by Mother Jones. Following Wednesday's hearing, where lawmakers and others highlighted the potential dangers of his bill, Christensen said that he's prepared to revise the legislation and "narrow it down to just protecting mother and unborn child." Then "it'll be noncontroversial and we'll be ready to go."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He added, "I do not believe in killing people for undue reason."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/nebraska-justifiable-homicide-abortion-bill</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Links:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/south-dakota-hb-1171-legalize-killing-abortion-providers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[2] http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/south-dakota-shelves-justifiable-homicide-measure</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[3] http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Intro/LB232.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[4] http://www.necitizen.com/Profiles/showinfo2.pl?ids=mchristensen,fshoemaker</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[5] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/sd-rep-justifiable-homicide-bill-has-got-nothing-do-abortion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[6] http://journalstar.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_83dc60c9-ed31-5bb2-a9ce-59950380c319.html?print=1</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[7] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/nebraska-teachers-guns_n_811028.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[8] http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=11970</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[9] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/sd-rep-who-authored-abortion-bill-nixes-sharia-ban</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[10] http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=12719</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[11] http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/has-your-state-banned-sharia-map</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wiley Drake, vice-presidential candidate for the America's Independent Party ticket in 2008 and the second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006–2007,[60] asked on his radio show, "Would you have rejoiced when Adolf Hitler died during the war? ... I would have said, 'Amen! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I'm glad he's dead.' This man, George Tiller, was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler, so I am happy; I am glad that he is dead."[60][61]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div>
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