Obama Sets Table for Pro-Abortion Regime by Domestic Policy Czar Appointment

Economic conservatives have heaved sighs of relief at the generally moderate appointments President-elect Obama has announced since swamping the hapless McCain campaign early last month. Social conservatives don't have nearly as much to celebrate.

Obama's new Domestic Policy Council director, leftist New York lawyer Melody Barnes, is an "unyielding" advocate of abortion, according a post in the Clerical Whispers blog, reproduced below. Barnes is a veteran of Emily's List, a pro-abortion PAC that cut off contributions to longtime pro-abortion allies who voted to ban partial-birth abortion.

Obama may be more successful than any of us predicted. "Real change" may indeed be on the way. "Country club" (economic) conservatives" never much cared for the unwashed social conservatives in the first place. High-church aristocrats like Danforth and Warner could scarcely conceal their contempt for the unsavory Fundamentalist - mostly Baptist and Pentecostal - Republicans whom they considered necessary but impudent allies.

Could it be that Obama is making a bid for their loyalty, re-aligning the American political landscape to put down the ragged 40-year Evangelical insurrection once and for all?

One of the programs under Barnes' direction will be Faith-Based Initiatives. She could slash funding, but Obama thinks like a chess player - several moves ahead. How much wiser for him to direct "faith-based" funding into pro-abortion denominations and nominally Christian outreaches, and as patronage for the Black church, which will be reliably pro-Obama when he runs for a second term.

Clerical Whispers
Fides - Libertas - Veritas
November 28, 2008
New Obama domestic policy director has close ties to abortion lobby

President-elect Obama has selected as Director of the Domestic Policy Council Melody C. Barnes, a New York lawyer with an “unyielding” record of abortion rights advocacy.
According to the White House web site, the Domestic Policy Council oversees major domestic policy areas such as education, health, housing, welfare, justice, federalism, transportation, environment, labor and veteran's affairs.

It also oversees the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Barnes is a former Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress, where she led the left-wing think tank’s Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative.

She has also served as a board member of EMILY’s List, a group formed more than two decades ago to support pro-abortion rights women candidates. Over the years the group has raised millions for Democratic women candidates who support unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand.

EMILY’s List has even cut funding from pro-abortion rights politicians who voted to ban partial-birth abortion.

Barnes has also lobbied on behalf of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR).

Carlos Polo, director for Latin America at the Population Research Institute, has linked the Center for Reproductive Rights to a strategy to force permissive abortion laws upon Latin America.

Members of CRR have proposed using international litigation to “develop new standards for the protection of reproductive rights” and to force local authorities to ignore their country’s laws and introduce changes that would allow abortion and “reproductive health” services for teenagers.

Barnes was a former aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy and was his chief counsel at the Senate Judiciary Committee from December 1995 to March 2003. According to the New York Times, Barnes is associated with a “bitter dispute” over confirmation of a federal appeals court judge in 2002. At the time, charges were leveled against Barnes and another aide to Ted Kennedy that they tried to influence the outcome of a high-profile affirmative action case by delaying the confirmation of a judge who might have ruled against affirmative action.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, in a Monday statement voiced criticism of Barnes’ selection as head of the Domestic Policy Council.

Claiming her “forte” is working with the “religious left,” Donohue reported that Barnes has been described by the left-wing journal The Nation as a “dyed-in-the-wool progressive.”

“She wants to overturn all restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, and her passion for abortion rights is so unyielding that she has served on the board of EMILY’s List and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund,” he charged.

Donohue also alluded to a controversy over pro-life Catholic and evangelical jurists allegedly being denied approval to serve as federal judges. Without mentioning specifics, he said Barnes had denied bigotry was an issue in the delay.
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Former Pro-Life Stalwart Moves Into Obama Column, Denounces Former Comrades

Catholic pro-life Constitutional law professor and author Douglas Kmiec joined the swell of support for pro-abortion, pro-infanticide Barack Obama this year, and has been hard at work defending his new position ever since. His pro-life former comrades aren't buying it. One website labeled the recent fratricide "the pro-life circular firing squad."

Given that his abortion views are increasingly indistinguishable from those of Chemerinsky et al, one wonders if Christian law schools will continue to use Kmiec's Constitutional Law casebook, or rebuke him by replacing it in the curriculum.

The Increasingly Bizarre Doug Kmiec
by Matthew Miller
Nov. 8, 2008

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, some months ago Catholic lawyer and former Romney supporter, Doug Kmiec took the bold step of endorsing Barack Obama. In succeeding installations defending his decision, Kmiec confessed that he felt Barack Obama would be more “pro-life” then John McCain. Really. At which point, he became a laughing stock in the conservative movement.

Now, in Slate’s post-election analysis from “conservatives” (i.e, idiosyncratic sometimes/once-were-right-leaning moderates), the Atlantic’s Ross Douthat has a few unkind words for Kmiec. He writes:

What I don’t understand at all is Kmiec’s position, which seems to be that the contemporary Democratic Party, and particularly the candidacy of Barack Obama, offered nearly as much to pro-lifers as the Republican Party does.

I am sure that Kmiec is weary of being called a fool by opponents of abortion for his tireless pro-Obama advocacy during this election cycle, but if so, then the thing for him to do is to cease acting like the sort of person for whom the term “useful idiot” was coined, rather than persisting in his folly.

Those seeking a primer on the case against Kmiec’s putatively pro-life position on Obama and abortion can begin here or here or here. Suffice to say that what he calls “outright lies and falsehoods” about Obama’s views were, in fact, more or less the truth: The Democratic nominee ran on a record that can only be described as “very, very pro-choice,” and his stated positions on abortion would involve rolling back nearly all the modest — but also modestly effective — restrictions that pro-lifers have placed upon the practice, and/or appointing judges who would do the same.

There may have been reasons for anti-abortion Americans to vote for Barack Obama in spite of his position that abortion should be essentially unregulated and funded by taxpayer dollars. But Kmiec’s suggestion that Obama took the Democrats in anything like a pro-life direction on the issue doesn’t pass the laugh test. (And nor, I might add, does his bizarre argument that because the goal of placing a fifth anti-Roe justice on the court is somehow unrealistic, the pro-life movement should pursue a far more implausible Constitutional amendment instead.)

I suppose I could find a thing or three to agree with in Kmiec’s longer list of ideas for how the party he abandoned could win back his vote. But frankly, I don’t see the point.

I understand that the pro-life position on abortion does not command majority support in the United States and that people of good will can disagree on the subject. And I have no doubt that the Republican Party can profit from greater dialogue between its pro-life and pro-choice constituents—and do a better job, as well, of addressing itself to both pro-lifers and pro-choicers who aren’t already inside its tent.

But I can’t begin to fathom why the GOP should consider taking any advice whatsoever from a “pro-lifer” who has spent the past year serving as an increasingly embarrassing shill for the opposition party’s objectively pro-abortion nominee.

Douthat is normally an interesting, but genteel writer, so even these few hints of venom are spicy. He’s, of course spot, on, but Kmiec doesn’t quite see it that way. Here’s, in part, his reply:

I am stunned by the coarseness of your writing, Ross. While we have not met, so little of what you have written is in any way respectful or acknowledges that you are addressing not some abstraction but a fellow human that I can only pray that if any of your family or closest friends come into contact with this commentary that they reach out to you in the most gentle and understanding way, without precondition, to calm an anger that is harmful to the soul.

Genuine love and affection do not reside on the Internet, so I cannot extend it to you, but in my heart, I forgive your great unkindness. I do hope you can free yourself from its enslavement. Realize that your meaning is bound up in the occasions in your life to be of service. Ross, once you allow yourself to see your dependence upon others, and their need for you, I am certain you will appreciate the cruelty of what you have written. To the extent that Slate accepts Ross’ submission as appropriate commentary directed toward helping the Republicans find their bearings, it must be accepted as a counter example from that which is ultimately desired. Ross’ anger is as unexplainable as it is wrong. Yet Kathleen suggests that Sarah Palin perhaps embodied exactly such anger; the anger of the “ordinary” person. One could sense that anger in the mobs riled by Mrs. Palin’s tirades about Obama being in a conspiracy of some sort with Bill Ayers. It was frightening to see on tape, and it is even uglier to see it rear its head here.

Ross, you are not ordinary in God’s eyes; nor are the women facing abortion as a tragic answer to a dismal, impoverished, and near-hopeless existence. Ross, you and she are brother and sister made in God’s image and are expected to be of help to one another. That is a lesson for the Republicans.

If it be useful idiocy to save even one child from death by lifting up the economic or social prospects of the mother, I accept the title as an honor among men. It is pro-life. If it is hypocritical not to want to treat as criminal the woman abandoned by the selfishness of an abusive spouse, I embrace the hypocrisy. It, too, is pro-life.

Surely this is parody. It reads like the dialogue from a B movie. I suspect the embarrassingly overwrought writing is a defense mechanism to obscure the indefensible. I don’t know too many women who’ve had abortions, or who admit it openly. I do know that in the United States, there are very few people, of any type, who can be fairly described as having a “dismal, impoverished, and near-hopeless existence”. This is not a third world (or should I say “developing”?) country. Doug would have us believe all 1.2 million American women who have abortions each year are digging through garbage piles for food and using water from puddles to bathe. Many women who have abortions ARE in truly heartbreaking situations, but Kmiec’s appeal to pity is obfuscation at best.

How precisely does it follow that because many women are struggling, or to accept Doug’s ludicrously stronger formulation, “in a near hopeless state of existence”, they should be permitted to have abortions? Where is the logical connection between pregnancy and a hopeless state of existence? Is Doug claiming that being pregnant is a hopeless state of existence? Or is he, rather, arguing that women who are already in a hopeless state of existence are becoming unwittingly pregnant? If the former… well I find his claim to be “pro-life” dubious. If the latter, I guess I’m supposed to conclude that ending a pregnancy (and thereby ending a person’s life) will substantially improve a woman’s previously hopeless existence. One moment, she’s cleaning her hair with her spit, while living out of a 3 wheeled Winnebago; the next she’s enrolling in night school, acing the bar, and taking up a satisfying croquet habit. Abortion as a rejuvenator. Or something.

If Kmiec means something else by this bizarre exposition, if he means instead that because women who have unwanted pregnancies often suffer, we ought to have compassion for them and seek to offer counseling and easy alternatives to abortion, then he has no quarrel with Douthat. Or me. Or John McCain. This is what the pro-life movement has substantially focused on-especially post-Casey when it looked as though future abortion litigation was DOA-for decades. It, more then any attempt to overturn Roe, dominates the energies of on the ground pro-life activists. Kmiec knows this, given that he ostensibly counted himself among them as little as a year ago.

He goes on, of course, to demonize pro-lifers and conservatives. Pro-lifers and conservatives don’t want to “lift up the economic or social prospects of the mother”. No mention that pro-lifers and conservatives believe that broadly conservative economic policies, combined with private charity and compassion, “life up all boats”. Pro-lifers want to “punish women who have been abused by their husbands”. No mention here that not a single mainstream pro-life politician has advocated “punishing” the women and that this is a canard of the left. This is all really more then one should have to bear from a man who’s now taken to arguing that justices Breyer and Souter advance the pro-life cause. I don’t begrudge Douthat his anger in the face of such raving nonsense. And I don’t believe Douthat is the one who needs prayer. Something is not right with Doug Kmiec.

Actionable? Panel Discussion on Post-Abortion Mental Health Effects

This looks to be a useful discussion and a good networking opportunity for anybody interested in abortionists' legal liability for the emotional distress of women (and perhaps even men) impacted by abortion. Especially interesting is the reappearance of Dr. David Reardon who "wrote the book" on litigating mental anguish claims against abortion providers, and helped put on training conferences for attorneys in conjunction with Life Dynamics several years ago.

FRC To Host Panel Discussion On Post-Abortion Mental Health Effects

Washington, D.C. - Thursday, October 9, at 10:00 am, Family Research Council will host a panel discussion with leading researchers and clinicians on abortion history and associated mental health effects. Data from numerous studies will be discussed and analyzed to explore associations between abortion and mental health, and substance abuse disorders. Additionally, results from a national poll conducted through the Elliot Institute examining politics and post-abortion awareness will be presented. Join us to learn more about the body of research the American Psychological Association failed to assess in its recent report on abortion and mental health.

Who: Priscilla K. Coleman, Ph.D., Bowling Green State University; Catherine T. Coyle, RN, Ph.D., Alliance for Post-Abortion Research & Training; Tom McClusky, Vice President for Government Affairs, FRC; David Reardon, Ph.D., Elliot Institute; Vincent M. Rue, Ph.D., Institute for Pregnancy Loss; Martha Shuping, M.D., Shuping & Associates.

What: Panel Discussion: Post-Abortion Mental Health Effects, Awareness, and Politics

When: Thursday, October 9, 2008 10:00am-12:00pm

Where: Family Research Council
801 G St, NW
Washington, DC 20001

RSVP: 1-800-225-4008 www.frc.org

*Complimentary lunch will be served*

Fathers Traumatized by Abortion: Approaching Critical Mass?

Even without a reversal of Roe v. Wade, if post-abortive men can establish that physicians have breached a duty and caused psychological injury to them in the course of aborting their children, the abortionists' potential liability at tort will be multiplied by two.

According to a psychologist quoted in this OneNewsNow article, "post-abortive" men often are psychologically traumatized by the abortion of their children, and have significant therapeutic needs. As such men meet and organize themselves, it's likely that they will eventually seek compensation from the abortionists who aborted their children.

Post-abortive men finally speak out
Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper
OneNewsNow

A second national conference on the negative effects of abortion on men has been held, and more may be scheduled.

The conference's purpose explores the revelation that men experience, according to LifeNews.com, profound regret and grief after an involvement in an abortion decision. Vicki Thorn of the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing believes consideration and psychological care for post-abortive fathers is long overdue.

"It's time we begin speaking about it, and that was my intent in being able to organize these two conferences -- that we begin to speak through the veil of science about the fact that there's more than one partner in this," Thorn explains. "The pregnancy didn't occur in a vacuum, and so there is both a woman and a man that are involved."

Thorn knows that fact from her own practice. "I've had calls from men from the very beginning, when I first started doing post-abortion work, risking to share their experiences and seeing that, within the society, there's no validation for the fact that a male might suffer afterwards," she adds.

Over 70 percent of relationships, according to Thorn, break up after an abortion. She claims the American Psychological Association (APA) mislead the American people in its recent claims that abortion is "psychologically safe" for women. The APA refuses to recognize long-term effects on women, and certainly on men, but Thorn believes it is a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed.

Another psychologist at the conference, Catherine Coyle, believes pro-lifers should be more available to help men who are grieving an abortion and show them that they are not alone.

"It is the compassionate thing for us to do to recognize that some people -- men and women -- have profound grief and suffering after an abortion," Coyle contends. "And if we are to be a compassionate society, we must validate their pain and provide the help they need regardless of where we may stand individually on the issue of abortion."

Parental Involvement Threatens Cash Flow

According to a Family Research Council study, state-level parental involvement laws could begin to drain the troubled waters in which abortion marketers fish for their clientele. If the figures in this FRC press release are correct, the abortion industry is already suffering significant financial damage in the studied locales, and enactment of parental involvement laws in the larger markets might financially cripple the national abortion industry.

Family Research Council Releases New Study on Successful Abortion Reduction Legislation

Washington, D.C. - Today, Family Research Council released a study demonstrating which state level parental involvement laws are most effective in reducing abortions among minors. The study is the first comprehensive analysis of minor abortion data from nearly all 50 states between 1985 and 1999. Overall, the findings indicate that when a state enacts a parental involvement law, the abortion rate falls by an average of approximately 13.6 percent. The study is available on www.frc.org

Family Research Council Fellow and study author Dr. Michael J. New, assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama, had this to say:

"This study is the first of its kind to compare different types of parental involvement laws. The study finds that more protective parental involvement laws result in even larger declines in abortion rates. Laws that require parental consent instead of parental notification reduce the minor abortion rate by about 19 percent. Furthermore, laws that mandate the involvement of two parents, instead of just one parent, reduce the in-state abortion rate by approximately 31 percent.
Minnesota and Mississippi laws are among the most effective in reducing abortion rates among minors.

"This study shows that parental involvement laws are an important causal factor in this decline in the overall abortion rate among minors in the United States, which has fallen by close to fifty percent between 1985 and 1999. Currently about 36 states have a parental involvement law on the books, but some are more effective than others in their ability to reduce the incidence of abortion."

"The overwhelming evidence in support of parental involvement laws should be a boon to legislators everywhere."

Health & Human Services Moves to Protect Pro-Life Physicians' Right of Conscience

The Family Research Council quickly congratulated the federal Department of Health and Human Services last week after it proposed a new regulation to protect pro-life medical professionals "right of conscience," which is to say their right not to provide abortions or referrals to abortionists.

None of this will matter if pro-abortion Barack Obama is swept into office this January, as he will certainly reverse any pro-life regulations shortly after his arrival at the West Wing, as former President Bill Clinton did in 1993.

FRC Welcomes Proposal Protecting Conscience Rights of Health Care Workers
August 21, 2008

Washington D.C.- Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) offered a new proposed regulation that increases awareness of, and complies with, three statutes on the books that protect federally funded health care providers' right of conscience.

Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council released the following statement:

"It is imperative to protect the fundamental rights of all healthcare professionals to practice medicine in line with their moral convictions and ethical standards. Until now regulations had not been issued ensuring the implementation of numerous laws protecting conscience. The absence of regulations has resulted in confusion and a lack of awareness within the medical community regarding their conscience rights, leaving healthcare personnel vulnerable to discrimination.

"This proposal ensures that doctors and other medical personnel will retain the constitutional right to listen to their own conscience when it comes to performing or participating in an abortion. These regulations will ensure that pro-life medical personnel will not be forced to engage in the unconscionable killing of innocent human life. Protecting the choice not to participate in abortions is a huge win for religious freedom and the First Amendment.
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"The Family Research Council believes that the HHS proposal will help protect religious organizations and individuals. Secretary Michael Leavitt is to be commended for his courageous stance in protecting the constitutional guarantee of personal conscience and religious liberty.

"We look forward to filing comments in defense of final regulations enforcing over three decades of conscience laws."

Kansas Judge Holds Late-term Abortion Restrictions Constitutional

The Associated Press reported last week that Sedwick County (Kansas) District Judge Clark Owens declared a state abortion law Constitutional 10 years after its enactment, thus depriving Wichita late-term abortionist George Tiller of a defense in his pending criminal trial. The well-connected, church-going abortionist is a major contributor to Kansas political campaigns, and has emerged as something of a kingmaker there.

Judge Rules Kansas Abortion Statute Constitutional, Denies Request To Dismiss Case Against Late-term Abortionist Tiller

(AP) District Judge Clark Owens ruled Monday that a state law requiring an independent, consulting physician to approve some abortions after 21 weeks' gestation does not violate the U.S. Constitution or the Kansas Constitution, the AP/Wichita Eagle reports. Subsequently, Owens also denied a motion to dismiss a criminal case against abortion provider George Tiller.

Tiller is being charged by state Attorney General Stephen Six (D) with 19 misdemeanors for allegedly violating the state law. The law requires two physicians, without financial or legal ties, to agree that if a pregnancy continues, the pregnant woman will die or face "substantial and irreversible" harm to a "major bodily function." Prosecutors have accused Tiller of having an illegal financial arrangement with physician Ann Kristin Neuhaus, who provided second opinions on abortions he conducted in 2003.

Tiller's attorneys argued that the law creates an unconstitutional burden on a physician's right to practice medicine and a woman's right to obtain an abortion. They also argued that the law is unconstitutionally vague. Tiller's attorneys also argued that it violates the right to travel because of the requirement a woman be seen by two separate physicians in Kansas.

In a 35-page decision, Owens upheld the statute against each of the challenges.

Owens also denied a defense motion Tuesday regarding the number of jurors who will hear the case, according to the Wichita Eagle. State law limits juries in misdemeanor trials to six members, but Tiller's attorneys had requested 12.

Although no Kansas case has directly addressed the issue of six-person juries, Owens said a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Florida case was a factor in his decision.

"There is no need to interpret the Kansas Constitution any differently than what the Supreme Court interpreted the U.S. Constitution," Owens said.

Ashley Anstaett, a spokesperson for the attorney general's office, said Monday that prosecutors will move forward with the criminal case.

Owens set the trial date for the case for March 16, 2009.

Reaction

Dan Monnat, one of Tiller's lawyers, said, "We certainly respect the decision of the judge, but we hasten to point out that the decision on this one legal point does nothing to affect Dr. Tiller's innocence of the very technical charge still set for jury trial.

"Of course, Dr. Tiller is disappointed that the court did not take this opportunity to end his political prosecution and clear the huge roadblock that lies in the path of women who choose to exercise their right to get a lawful abortion in Kansas."

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, said the ruling is good news because Neuhaus was not independent of Tiller.

"I think the court has made a correct decision," Culp said. "There was no doubt in our minds that the law was constitutional, but you have to depend on judges to interpret these things."

Culp said Owens' decision shows that the 1998 law is valid, with "fail-safes" in place to prevent unwarranted late-term abortions, if officials will enforce them.

Troy Newman, president of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue, said that the ruling "vindicates our efforts to bring Tiller to justice.

"All along, we knew that it wasn't the law that was faulty, but it was Tiller's interpretation of the law that was faulty. This gives us a glimmer of hope that we could eventually see some shred of justice."

According to Monnat, abortion-rights opponents have been trying to intimidate and threaten doctors in Wichita who provide the required second opinion. "Tiller, however, will not be deterred by these people but rather will continue to work within the law as he has done for 30 years to help women get the health care they need and deserve," Monnat said, adding, "Tiller looks forward to having his day in court."

Pro-abortion Ethical Regime May Force Pro-Life Doctors and Pharmacists Out Despite Federal Law Protecting Conscience

There's more than one way to skin a cat. Pro-abortion activists are attacking pro-life obstetricians and gynecologists by revising professional ethics within the field, thus circumventing statutory protections that heretofore have protected the pro-life doctors' right to exercise conscience in this area. The Heritage Foundation reports that under the revised ethical system, doctors who refuse to perform abortions or provide abortion referrals will lose the certification that enables them to practice medicine at a hospital.

Forcing Pro-life Doctors Out of Baby Business?
By Daniel Patrick Moloney and Peter Reed

Should pro-life doctors and pharmacists be free to practice their profession according to the dictates of their consciences? Should a woman have the freedom to choose an obstetrician or gynecologist she trusts to provide care consistent with her beliefs?

Current federal law says yes. But many women may have that choice greatly restricted, and their doctors driven out of business, if a medical association is able to require that all doctors either perform abortions or make referrals for abortions.

In November 2007, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) announced that the ethical standards of the profession had changed. Its ethics committee stated that an ob/gyn who is unwilling to perform an abortion has an ethical duty to refer the patient to someone who will perform it. If the physician is unable to refer the patient in a timely manner, he would be required to perform the abortion himself.

This decision threatens the livelihood of pro-life doctors. Every ob/gyn who works in a hospital or clinic needs not only a license, but also certification that his skills are up to date and that he is aware of recent developments in the field. To be certified, he must follow the ethical standards of the profession, so under the new ethics policy a pro-life doctor risks losing his certification if his pro-life convictions don't allow him to perform or cooperate in an abortion. And if he loses his certification, a hospital or clinic won't let him deliver babies there.

The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists has labeled the decision “a raw power play to cripple, and ultimately eliminate from practice, those doctors who hold a conscience conviction on the sanctity of human life.” Besides forcing current ob/gyns out of the profession, the policy would make any bright young pro-life student think twice about going to medical school for obstetrics or gynecology.

Federal law protects doctors from discrimination for being pro-life. Any hospital or clinic that receives government funds (and most do) must allow a qualified pro-life doctor or medical student to practice his profession. So any hospital or clinic that rejects a doctor who lacks board certification could find itself in violation of federal law, and unwittingly be at risk of losing its government funding.

In response, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt sent the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the professional agency that provides continuing certification for doctors, a letter strongly urging the agency not to base its licensing requirements on the ACOG ethics opinion. The Board was evasive: It claimed that whether a physician is pro-life has no bearing on his certification, yet it did not explicitly reject the ethics opinion. Nor did it rule out taking action against “unethical” pro-life doctors in the future. ACOG announced simply that it would review the ethics committee opinion. In June, Leavitt sent a second letter requesting more decisive action. But as things stand, a pro-life ob/gyn still risks losing his certification.

Even if the Board and the College continue to evade the communications from HHS, Leavitt could act to help the doctors. He should send a letter to all federally funded hospitals and clinics that employ ob/gyns, explaining federal law and how the new certification policy conflicts with it.

To further clarify current law protections, HHS is reportedly reviewing a draft regulation to ensure that federally funded hospitals and clinics protect the conscience rights of health care professionals. Current law protects doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health workers against being forced to violate their moral convictions.

Developments in the field -- such as the "morning-after" pill -- have made once abstract distinctions about the moment life begins immediately relevant. Many people believe that life begins when an egg is fertilized, and that the “morning-after” pill constitutes abortion. Other people believe that conception occurs only when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus, so that the “morning-after” pill is simply “emergency contraception,” because it prevents “conception” as they define it. The HHS regulation deems each view reasonable, and protects both views. Rather than imposing a bureaucratic definition, it defers the matter to the conscience of the health care provider -- as federal law has to date.

Federal law has upheld and should continue to uphold the conscience rights of medical professionals. Indeed, it was designed to combat the very kind of discrimination the ACOG ethics opinion recommends. Bureaucracy shouldn’t get in the way of qualified professionals being allowed to practice conscientiously and patients being able to choose a health care provider with similar convictions.

Daniel Patrick Moloney, Ph.D., is Senior Policy Analyst in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. Peter Reed, a senior at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va., is a Heritage intern.

Fourth Circuit Will Convene En Banc to Reconsider Panel's 2-1 Holding Against Virginia Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

The federal 4th Circuit Court of Appeals will meet in its entirety (en banc) to rehear arguments on Virginia's partial-birth abortion ban after a three-judge panel of the same court overturned the law by a 2-1 decision.

One of the appeal issues is that the Virginia statute, unlike its federal counterpart, does not protect abortionists who set out to perform legally permissible abortions, but perform partial-birth abortions by accident.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari after the 6th Circuit struck down a similar Michigan statute in June, 2007. If the 4th Circuit decides en banc to uphold Virginia's statute, the High Court may grant certiorari in order to resolve the conflict between the circuits.

Full court will consider Virginia ban on 'partial-birth abortion'
By LARRY O'DELL
Associated Press

RICHMOND - A full federal appeals court agreed Monday to review a panel decision striking down a Virginia law banning a type of late-term abortion.

The state attorney general's office asked for the rehearing after a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the ban unconstitutional on May 20. Oral arguments are expected in late October.

The law bans a procedure that abortion opponents call "partial-birth abortion." Judge M. Blane Michael wrote in the panel's majority opinion that the law is unconstitutional "because it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to obtain an abortion."

An appeals court panel first struck down the statute in 2005. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the court to take another look after upholding a similar federal abortion ban last year.

"We are pleased by today's decision that the full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear this case for the first time," said J. Tucker Martin, a spokesman for Attorney General Bob McDonnell.

Stephanie Toti, the Center for Reproductive Rights lawyer who represented abortion providers in the case, said she was surprised the full appeals court decided to rehear the case "because the legal issues involved are fairly straightforward."

Abortion opponents claim the Virginia law is broader than the federal ban. One key difference between the two laws cited by the appeals panel in its 2-1 ruling: The federal law protects doctors who set out to perform a legal abortion that by accident becomes the banned procedure, while the Virginia statute does not.

"The Virginia law is extreme in its application," Toti said. "It's basically a ban on a common method of second-trimester abortion."

Toti also noted that in June 2007, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared Michigan's law unconstitutional because it could also prohibit other abortion procedures. The Supreme Court in January refused to review the decision.

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The case is Richmond Medical Center v. Herring.

On the Net:
The May 20 panel decision: http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/031821A.P.pdf

Massachusetts Abortionist Arraigned, Surrenders Passport & Medical License

A Barnstable, Massachusetts abortionist pled not guilty to manslaughter during his arraignment in a state courtroom yesterday in connection with the allegedly botched abortion death of 22-year-old Laura Hope Smith. Dr. Rapin Osathanondh was released on his own recognizance after surrendering his passport to ensure that he would not flee the country while awaiting trial.

A grand jury indicted Osathanondh after its investigation into Smith's death uncovered a lack of life-saving equipment, the failure to monitor the patient, the delay in calling 911, and an effort to cover up his negligence.

Osathanondh earlier surrendered his medical license and closed his abortion clinics in Brookline and Hyannis, where Smith died.

"This was only possible because the death was publicly exposed by pro-lifers and because Laura's mother, Eileen, was steadfastly determined to seek justice," said anti-abortion activist Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue. "It just goes to show what can happen when those fighting for justice just won't give up."

The report on conditions in Osathanondh's abortion facilities "is a must see," Newman said. "The deficiencies and negligence that led to Laura's death are not unique to this particular abortionist. These kinds of conditions exist at abortion mills across the nation. Laura's death serves as a warning to all women. When women walk into America's abortion mill, they are playing Russian Roulette with their lives."

RU486 is No Help Against Cancer, Infections, or Viruses Including HIV

Recent University of Pennsylvania research suggests that the abortifacient RU486 has no effect on natural killer (NK) cell activity. Two other (non-abortifacient) drugs in the study showed some promise, but RU486 was of no benefit.

Antidepressants May Help Body Fight Cancer, HIV

The Independent reports that new research published in Biological Psychiatry indicates some antidepressants may help they body fight HIV, cancer and other infections.

Natural killer (NK) cells are white blood cells which home in on infected or cancerous cells, releasing agents that induce apoptosis, or “cell suicide”. NK cells are especially active against viruses.

The research emerged from findings that stress and depression impair NK cell function and can accelerate the progress of HIV/ Aids. Scientists recruited depressed and non-depressed HIV-positive women and treated them with three drugs to treat stress and depression. Two, Citalopram and the “substance P antagonist” CP-96345 increased NK cell activity, while RU486 had no effect.

The Independent article also contained the following quote from the leader of the research team, Dr. Dwight Evans of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia: “The findings show that natural killer cell function in HIV infection may be enhanced by selective serotonin re-uptake inhibition and substance P antagonism.”

It sounds promising. If additional research supports the theory it is possible more people suffering from HIV and/or cancer will also be put on an antidepressant. Many cancer patients already are because it helps with chronic pain management.

Virginia Prosecutor Absolves Catholic Charities Staffer Who Authorized Teen Refugee's Abortion

OneNewsNow reported Wednesday that a Catholic Charities staffer signed a 16-year-old girl's parental consent form obtain an abortion in Virginia. By Friday, the A.P. news wire reported that Virginia Commonwealth's Attorney (prosecutor) Michael Herring had absolved the staffer of criminal liability.

Questionable abortion involves Catholic group
by Rusty Pugh OneNewsNow

Virginia's Commonwealth Catholic Charities is under investigation for allegedly helping a 16-year-old Guatemalan immigrant obtain an abortion. Michael Herring, the Commonwealth's Attorney for Richmond, Virginia, agreed to investigate the charities involvement after American Life League (ALL) demanded action.

According to press reports, both the Diocese of Richmond and Bishop Francis DiLorenzo had prior knowledge of the abortion, which happened January 18, 2008. But diocesan statements say that Bishop DiLorenzo was erroneously told there was nothing he could do to intervene.

Four employees of Catholic Charities were fired in March for their involvement. Bishop DiLorenzo informed his fellow bishops of the abortion on April 29 and the Wanderer, a national Catholic publication, broke the story June 13.

Judie Brown of The American Life League says this investigation is an excellent first step, but wonders why details are just now being made public -- almost seven months later. She says the ALL will continue to pressure Herring to investigate the alleged criminal acts that involved the provision of contraception and an abortion to a minor.

"We can't believe the antipathy of the Commonwealth District Attorney, but we have no desire whatsoever to take the pressure off of him. It is his responsibility to defend the law and to investigate these crimes," says Brown.

While the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is investigating whether any federal crimes occurred, the Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney is investigating whether the Catholic Charities employee who signed the girl's parental consent form violated state law.

Catholic Charities staffer won't be charged in child's abortion
Associated Press

A Catholic Charities staffer in Virginia who signed a consent form allowing a 16-year-old Guatemalan foster child to get an abortion won't face prosecution.

Richmond-based Commonwealth's Attorney Michael Herring says there was no criminal intent because the Catholic Charities staffer and others on her team believed they had the legal authority to sign the abortion consent form. Herring said workers believed the procedure was allowed after the Office of Refugee Resettlement denied funding for the abortion, but did not direct staffers away from the procedure.

The Catholic charity cares for refugee children with support from the office. Richmond Bishop Francis DiLorenzo has apologized for lapses that led to the abortion.

California Planned Parenthood defies FDA, prescribes deadly RU-486 (a.k.a. mifeprestone) doses for home use

The University of Michigan has studied the deaths of eight women who died of bacterial infections caused by improper administration of a French abortifacient drug, in violation of FDA protocols. The Family Research Council email below suggests that the deadly abortionists operate with impunity because of Planned Parenthood's bodyguard of Congressional Democrats.

RU-486 Deaths at Planned Parenthood - A study from the University of Michigan traces the deaths of eight women who died from bacterial infection due to the improper administration of RU-486 by professional abortion providers.

Four fatalities occurred as a result of California Planned Parenthood clinics that failed to follow FDA protocol for dispensing the deadly drug. PP continues to urge patients to take one pill in the abortion regimen at home despite FDA warnings that it "should be done in a medical office to monitor women for complications."

Despite a plethora of irregularities at PP clinics, including the intentional targeting of minorities for abortion, the cover-up of underage abortions, statutory rapes and incest, the falsification of records and blatant disregard for the law, human safety, and life, Congressional Democrats push for increased taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.

Is a New Day Dawning in Abortion Litigation?

Bill Saunders has posted an optimistic proposition on the Family Research Council's blog: that "a new day is dawning" in abortion litigation. For decades, abortion negligence and abortion battery plaintiffs have come up against what Constitutional litigator Jay Sekulow calls "the abortion distortion" - a recurring bias in favor of the abortionist at every stage of the proceedings.

It is testimony to the low expectations of anti-abortion activists that Saunders is so elated at the procedural ruling in the South Dakota case that divests a federal district judge there of authority to indefinitely postpone enforcement of a properly enacted state law that requires full disclosure by the abortionist, informed consent by the woman. The Family Research Council was not a party to the lawsuit, but filed an amicus curiae brief.

I would have thought that "a new day dawning" would entail leveling the playing field in malpractice, negligence and battery actions against abortionists, not just upholding modest, unburdensome state regulation of the abortion industry. Here is the text of Saunders' post on the Family Research Council's blog.

A new day is dawning in abortion litigation

Remember Gonzales v. Carhart? That's the Supreme Court decision from last year that upheld the Congressional ban on partial birth abortion. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion, and lawyers tied themselves up in knots trying to interpret it. Most agree it was a narrow victory for the pro-life cause, but it was a victory. That can be seen in last Friday's decision by the 8th Circuit to allow a South Dakota abortion law to go into effect, a case in which FRC filed a friend of the court brief.

Prior to Gonzales v. Carhart, such laws were routinely struck down before they ever came into binding, legal force. Kennedy specifically noted, however, that this approach (another of the distortions abortion causes to the law) would no longer be followed. If someone wanted to challenge a law as it was applied to them, they could, and the court would decide whether specific provisions of that law, rather than the entire law, violated the Constitution. The 8th Circuit applied that logic to a challenge to South Dakota's law, and allowed the law to go into effect.

The law merely provides that women seeking an abortion should be given complete information about the risks involved, etc, but Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry wanted to stop it at any cost, as usual, regardless of the fact women deserve to receive such information. However, the 8th Circuit rejected their old "business as ususal" approach to litigation concerning abortion and replaced it with some common sense.

A new day is dawning in abortion litigation.

En banc, 8th Circuit says new South Dakota disclosure law is enforceable

U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier's injunction against enforcing a South Dakota abortion-related full disclosure law has been overturned, according an Associated Press wire story, clearing the way for implementation pending a determination by the same (overruled) judge as to the constitutional merits of the state law.

Court overturns injunction on S.D. abortion law
By CHET BROKAW

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled that South Dakota can begin enforcing a law requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions that the procedure ends a human life.

The 7-4 decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis sends the case back to U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier of Rapid City for proceedings that will result in a decision on whether the law passed by the 2005 South Dakota Legislature is constitutional.

Schreier had temporarily prevented the law from taking effect while she decides the case. She had ruled that opponents had a fair chance of succeeding in their claim that the law violates doctors' free-speech rights by forcing them to tell women things the doctors might not believe.

A three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit had agreed with Schreier, but the full court threw out her order. It said Friday that Planned Parenthood, which operates South Dakota's only abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, has not provided enough evidence that it is likely to prevail.

"The bottom line is if the state Legislature orders a professional to tell the truth, that's not a violation of the First Amendment," said South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long, who is defending the law in court.

Mimi Liu, a lawyer for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said such rulings generally take about three weeks to take effect. Long said it could take less time.

The 2005 law would make doctors tell women "that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." Women also would have to be told they have a right to continue a pregnancy and that abortion may cause women psychological harm, including thoughts of suicide.

Planned Parenthood has failed to show that the information to be given to women seeking abortions is untruthful, misleading or irrelevant to the woman's decision, the appeals court majority said. Taking into account definitions in the law, the information required to be given is biological in nature, so Planned Parenthood has not shown the information is ideological, the decision said.

Harold Cassidy, a lawyer representing two pregnancy counseling centers that support the abortion law, hailed the ruling.

"We think it's a big victory for the woman obviously to be given accurate information in order to make a decision not only for the child, but also for herself," Cassidy said.

Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Parenthood in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, said the law would force doctors to read ideological language to women seeking abortions.

"They are imposing compelled speech on doctors. It is not about providing information to women. It is about intruding in the doctor-patient relationship. It is unprecedented and extremely outrageous," Stoesz said.

Planned Parenthood's lawsuit contends the law not only violates doctors' free-speech rights, but also is an undue burden on a woman's right to an abortion.

South Dakota voters in 2006 rejected a ballot measure to ban nearly all abortions. A measure on this year's ballot also would ban abortions but would allow exceptions in cases involving rape, incest and a threat to a woman's life and health.

"With Trepidation," Missouri Circuit Judge Rules Abortion-Related Law is Constitutional, Yet Stays Enforcement Again

Jackson County Circuit Judge Charles Atwell has ruled that SB1 - a state law allowing civil litigation against anyone who intentionally assists a minor in obtaining an abortion without parental or judicial consent — is constitutional, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report Wednesday.

However, Atwell said the law is only constitutional with judicial limitations that protect free speech, and he issued an injunction stopping enforcement of the law until a higher court rules on the case.

Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri (PPKMM) filed a lawsuit last month to challenge the law, complaining that it could financially cripple some Planned Parenthood affiliates.

PPKMM attorney Eve Gartner argued that counselors who discuss abortion with pregnant girls, whether or not the girls undergo abortion, could be considered to have violated the law. Atwell issued a preliminary injunction in November blocking the state from implementing the provision while he considered the issues of the case.

Atwell said the law is unconstitutional, as it infringes on the right to free speech and due process for people who provide information and counseling to girls, and said providing information on reproductive rights would be protected. However, he said the law would be constitutional if it were interpreted with his judicial restraints.

Atwell’s said that a lawsuit only could be brought against someone if they were familiar with the law and if they knew the girl being counseled was under 18 and also was trying to circumvent the consent requirement.

“[T]he court, with substantial trepidation, finds that(the law) is constitutional” with those restrictions in place, Atwell wrote. In his ruling, Atwell also questioned if his interpretation is “a legitimate act of judicial interpretation or does it constitute a rewriting (of the law) infringing upon the powers clearly invested in the legislative branch?”.

A Planned Parenthood spokesperson said the group will appeal Atwell’s ruling.

“Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Nonprofit Business Structure Doesn't Confer Malpractice Immunity

Doctors practicing abortion under the umbrella of the Planned Parenthood Federation or other nonprofit organizations may not qualify for the charitable immunity doctrine in Virginia, after an analogous recent state supreme court decision.

The case involved doctors working for the nonprofit University of Virginia Health Services Foundation who argued they should be immune from malpractice suits.

The Court observed that the foundation "operates like a profitable commercial business with extensive revenue and assets." Therefore it is "not immune from tort liability under the doctrine of charitable immunity."

A ruling to the contrary would have permitted doctors and other professionals to escape liability by working under a nominally nonprofit structure, according to one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, quoted below.

Virginia Supreme Court Rules That Nonprofit Charity-Affiliated Doctors Are Not Sued for Malpractice

By Nancy Young
The Virginian-Pilot


Doctors affiliated with charitable foundations are not immune from malpractice suits, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The cases involved the University of Virginia Health Services Foundation, whose lawyers had argued that because its physicians were working for a nonprofit organization they should be immune from malpractice suits.

The state's highest court found that while the foundation's physicians conducted "commendable" charity care for indigent patients, the bulk of its services were not charitable in nature. It sent three malpractice cases back to lower courts to be decided on their merits.

"HSF operates like a profitable commercial business with extensive revenue and assets," the court's opinion said. Therefore it is "not immune from tort liability under the doctrine of charitable immunity."

If the court had ruled that UVA foundation doctors were entitled to charitable immunity, it could potentially have meant "no more medical malpractice litigation in Virginia," said L. Steven Emmert, an appellate lawyer in Virginia Beach who argued before the court on behalf of one of the patients. Such a ruling would have opened the door to doctors and other professionals to escape liability by working under a nominally nonprofit structure, he said.

Eastern Virginia Medical School has an affiliated nonprofit physicians' foundation group similar to UVA's and has claimed charitable immunity for its physicians facing malpractice suits, said Glen Huff, a Virginia Beach lawyer who represents the EVMS Academic and Physicians and Surgeons Health Services Foundation.

While the EVMS group has cases pending before the state Supreme Court, Huff said that there are variations in structure versus the UVA group that could lead to a different outcome.

"We're greatly disappointed with the opinion," Huff said. "But it's not necessarily a death knell for us."

In July, the medical malpractice cap in Virginia will reach $2 million, according to The Medical Society of Virginia.

Planned Parenthood's Potential Problem with African-American Jurors

The Family Research Council (FRC) reported this week on a sub rosa investigation by a UCLA student showing that Planned Parenthood chapters in all seven surveyed states were amenable to accepting donations earmarked for the abortion of Black babies.

Some of the audio is already on Youtube.com, and the FRC is posting transcripts and an audio montage at http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=LK08B57&f=WA08B46.

The implications for defendants who work at Planned Parenthood clinics are ominous. Unless pro-abortion forces can stanch the public dissemination of the UCLA evidence, Black jurors and Black-sympathetic jurors may be more sympathetic to plaintiffs in future litigation against Planned Parenthood-affiliated abortionists, and this sentiment could bleed over to litigation against unaffiliated abortionists.

Here is the FRC's brief article:

Racism Alive and Well at Planned Parenthood

A shocking set of recordings was released this week that could prove disastrous for Planned Parenthood's ties with the African-American community. Lila Rose, a pro-life student and reporter at UCLA, launched an undercover investigation aimed at exposing the racism of the nation's largest abortion merchant. With the help of an actor, she contacted Planned Parenthood clinics in seven states, inquiring if they would be willing to accept a donation earmarked for the abortion of black babies. The results were jaw-dropping.

Rose was appalled to discover that every last clinic agreed. Not one employee objected or questioned the request, even when the actor insisted that the purpose was to "lower the number of black people" in America. When the caller phoned an Ohio branch, he was told that Planned Parenthood "will accept the money for whatever reason."

Actor: ...I really faced trouble with affirmative action, and I don't want my kids to be disadvantaged against black kids.
Planned Parenthood: Yes, absolutely.
Actor: And we don't, you know, we just think the less black kids out there the better.
Planned Parenthood: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable... This is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited and want to make sure I don't leave anything out.

Students at UCLA are so infuriated by the investigation that they are petitioning the university to cut all affiliation with Planned Parenthood.

What few people realize is that the organization has a history of racism that has been ingrained since Planned Parenthood's earliest days, when founder Margaret Sanger advocated negative eugenics and spoke to a woman's branch of the KKK (Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography, 1938, p. 336-367).

However, as is customary for Planned Parenthood, the organization has managed for decades to cover its tracks--and the facts. That task has just been made monumentally more difficult.

Abortion has taken the innocent lives of over 14 million black children--a national tragedy that has begun uniting and mobilizing African-Americans across party, state, and financial lines.

Today, FRC hosted a press conference to kick off the National Black Pro-Life Gathering in Washington, D.C. which drew pastors, parents, leaders, and activists from across America to commemorate Black History Month by calling on abortion merchants like Planned Parenthood to stop preying on their community.

As these abortion clinics continue to demonstrate that blood money is not colorblind, we call on Congress to de-fund and disavow Planned Parenthood. Taxpayers should not be forced to spend over $300 million on an organization whose scruples are for sale, even to those who seek racial genocide.

Iowa Supreme Court: Medical Malpractice Statute of Limitations Runs From First Knowledge of Extent and Cause of Injury

The Iowa Supreme Court sent two medical malpractice lawsuits back to district court last week after announcing a new decision on how the statute of limitations should be interpreted. The decision, which affects a breast cancer patient and a woman who had liver problems as a teenager, could allow more leeway for when patients can file negligence claims.

Justices ruled that the statute's two-year window should begin when patients know the extent and cause of their illness or injury, not necessarily when their symptoms are initially diagnosed. "We choose this approach because it is ... fair to patients, doctors and the medical malpractice industry," the court wrote.

The district courts, citing previous Supreme Court opinions, had dismissed both malpractice lawsuits after deciding the limitations period had expired.

Death by Cardiac Pulmonary Arrest During Abortion Anesthesia

Hyannis, MA - Five months after the death of 22-year old Laura Hope Smith during anesthesia for an abortion, Rapin Osathanondh has relinquished his medical license. A criminal investigation and disciplinary action by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine preceded Osathanondh's decision.

The Board had moved to suspend Osathanondh's license pending further investigation, declaring him to be a "risk to public safety." In a surprise move yesterday, Osathanondh instead permanently surrendered his license, and will not practice medicine again anywhere.

On Monday, the Boston Medical Examiner's office declared that the cause of Smith's death was "cardiac pulmonary arrest during anesthesia during a voluntary termination of pregnancy."

Calls to Osathanondh's clinic revealed that it is not accepting patients, but is referring women to other clinics.

Smith had sought an abortion from Osathanondh on September 13, 2007, at his office, Women's Health Center, in the Cape Cod town of Hyannis. Smith was placed under full anesthesia when only Osathanondh and a non-medical receptionist were present. When Smith suddenly stopped breathing, the receptionist phoned 911 but gave very little information to the dispatcher. Smith died later that day.

FDA Chinese Pharmaceutical Scandal Prefigured by Politicized RU-486 Approval

Nobody who witnessed the dishonest, politicized FDA approval of (French) RU-486 abortifacients during the Clinton administration can be very surprised at this latest dereliction, regulating Chinese-manufactured pharmaceutical imports.

How Many Decades Will It Take to Fix FDA?
By Terence Jeffrey

The unfolding tragedy in which four Americans have died in the last two months and about 350 others have suffered adverse reactions after being injected with Chinese-made heparin -- a blood-thinning drug -- has its roots in a spectacular example of bad government that some federal watchdogs started barking at a decade ago.

Elected officials in Washington, D.C., simply did not respond adequately to the warnings.

In 1998, after investigating the Food and Drug Administration's procedures for inspecting foreign factories producing drugs for import into the United States, the Government Accountability Office told Congress the system put Americans at risk.

GAO had discovered two internal FDA documents -- a 1988 "internal review" and a 1993 "internal discussion paper" -- that indicated the agency knew it had problems monitoring the safety of foreign-made drugs.

"The evaluations concluded that unless corrected, problems in FDA's foreign inspection program could lead to the importation of adulterated and low-quality drugs that could pose serious health risks to Americans," Bernice Steinhardt, then the GAO's director of public health issues, told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

One remarkable GAO discovery: The FDA did not possess a complete and reliable list of the foreign manufacturers producing drugs that would end up in the bloodstreams of Americans.

Had it known who all these foreign manufacturers were, however, the FDA still would not have done a good job inspecting them.

The foreign inspections that FDA did do, GAO discovered, were primarily limited to facilities applying to ship new drugs into the United States. After that, foreign manufacturers rarely saw the sort of routine follow-up inspections U.S.-based manufacturers are subject to every two years.

Nor was the Reagan doctrine of "trust but verify" applied to foreign drug makers in places such as the People's Republic of China. Managers of a U.S. facility where a problem was discovered had to fix it and face re-inspection; managers of a foreign facility simply had to give their word they would fix it.

Lack of resources to conduct foreign inspections, GAO said, led FDA staff to 'trust' a foreign manufacturer to correct serious manufacturing deficiencies."

Last year, GAO auditors took another look at FDA's system for inspecting foreign drug factories. On Nov. 1, Marcia Crosse, the agency's director of health care, presented their preliminary findings to the same congressional panel that received GAO's 1998 report.

FDA's performance had not improved.

It still did not have a complete and reliable list of foreign factories making drugs that end up in American bloodstreams. "FDA does not know how many foreign establishments are subject to inspection," Crosse told the committee.


One FDA list said about 3,000; another, 6,800. A third list of foreign facilities that FDA "prioritized" for inspections cited 3,249. Of these, says GAO, FDA inspects about 7 percent a year, meaning it would take 13 years to inspect them all.

In the People's Republic of China, according to GAO, there are now 714 drug-making facilities on FDA's "prioritized" list. From 2002-2007, FDA inspected only 88 of these, and the number of inspections has been declining each year. In 2005, it inspected 21 Chinese plants; in 2006, 17; in 2007, 13.

Double standards persist. Here, FDA inspections are unannounced. In China, FDA inspectors warn the drug maker in advance and must get a visa.

Most remarkably, the FDA does not bring its own translators on foreign inspection tours or hire independent translators to accompany its inspectors to foreign drug-making facilities. Instead, it relies on English-speaking officials at the factories being inspected to tell them what is going on.

"Our concern is not whether there is somebody in the Chinese facility who speaks English," GAO's Crosse told me, "but whether the inspectors can to talk to anybody on the line that they want to, can look at the signs labeling the equipment and read it and understand whether it is appropriately labeled, whether it has the right kinds of warnings on it, can look in a logbook and understand what kind of records were being kept, and understand what the columns were that people were asked to fill out."

The heparin that is suspected in the four deaths over the last two months was sold by Illinois-based Baxter Healthcare Corp., which secured the active ingredient in the drug from a company in China called Changzhou SPL. Changzhou was never inspected by the FDA, the Chicago Tribune reported this week, because "regulators confused the factory's name with another that already had U.S. approval."

"This is exactly the risk we were pointing to," Crosse told me.

Will another decade pass before politicians fix the FDA?


Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor-in-chief of CNSNews.

Endocrinology Professor's View of Research on Breast Cancer-Abortion Link

The importance of a causal link between abortion and breast cancer, from a legal perspective, is that it might obligate the abortion provider to make full disclosure to the patient before her decision to proceed, in order to satisfy the "informed consent" requirement. Without informed consent, the abortionist may be liable at tort for negligence or battery, or both.

Dr. Joel Brind, Professor of Human Biology and Endocrinology at the City University of New York, remarks below on the stubborn editorial bias within his field against any link between induced abortions and breast cancer. This favors defendants, as expert witnesses will be able to cite "consensus in the literature" that no link has been proven. But it could change, and definitely bears further monitoring.

“Is there any evidence for an association between induced abortion and breast cancer?”
By Joel Brind

Dr. Joel Brind is a biochemist who has specialised in reproductive steroid hormones and their links to human diseases since 1972. In a paper given at Newman House in Birmingham, England in October 2005, he said he discovered a link between breast cancer and induced abortion in published research going back to 1957.

Since that time, he has devoted much of his research to promoting awareness to what has become known as the “ABC link”. In 1996, along with colleagues from the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine, he published a comprehensive review and meta-analysis on the ABC link in the British Medical Association's epidemiological journal.(1)

In 1999, along with three physician colleagues, he founded the non-profit Breast Cancer Prevention Institute in Poughkeepsie, New York. He was later appointed to a federal advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) on early detection and control of breast and cervical cancer.

A criticism sometimes levelled at the link is that it was based on certain reporting bias on the part of women suffering breast cancer. On the other hand, other studies purporting to show no linkage, were flawed in various ways.

One large British study of recent years was a meta-analysis based on 52 studies, when in fact only 41 of them had been published, and others had been eliminated for no valid scientific reason.

In another, the percentage of women in a large study in Oxford who had had admitted to having an induced abortion, was only a fraction of the nationally accepted proportion of women who have an induced abortion, thus calling into question the study`s benign conclusions.

In a Scottish study, although computerized medical records were available, they had been selectively interpreted with significant groups of women eliminated, notably teenagers who had had induced abortions, which called the conclusions into question.

Throughout research on any link with induced abortion, a strong editorial bias seems to have been exercised towards supporting the status quo of current abortion practice. There appeared to be a basic presumption that there is no risk and a selective removal of the evidence pointing the other way. A study in Australia which was based on fuller evidence, had simply published incomplete results.

The epidemiological risk is associated with an increase in the levels of estrogen. This is increased 2,000 fold in the first trimester and it stimulates breast changes leading to rapid growth and an increase in Type 1 and 2 breast lobules. These are less stable than the later Type 3 and 4 lobules in the mature breast. Thus a term pregnancy protects against the development of breast cancer.

In fact, a natural miscarriage is not associated with an increase risk of breast cancer since miscarriages are associated with low levels of estrogen. About 23% of pregnancies end in a natural miscarriage, 90% of which occur in the first trimester. Miscarriages in the second trimester can increase risk of breast cancer.

Induced abortion in the first trimester, and even more so the second or third trimester, are associated with high estrogen levels and a persistence of the less stable and more rapidly growing type 1 and 2 breast lobules. This risk is highest in teenagers having an induced abortion in the late first or second trimester. There is also an increased risk in women who deliver prematurely before 32 weeks and women who have never had a full term pregnancy.

A quotation from the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute publication “Breast Cancer, risks and prevention”, says

“Over the last thirty years, whilst most major cancers have started to decline, breast cancer incidences in the US has increased by an alarming 40%. Most of this increase has occurred in the author's generation, the generation of “Women's Lib.” (2)

Refs;

(1)
Brind J, Chinchilli VM, Severs WB, Summary-Long J, Induced abortion as an independent risk factor for breast cancer: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis. J Epidemiol Community Health 1996;50:481 - 496

(2)
“Breast Cancer, risks and prevention”

Angela Lanfrachi, MD., F.A.C.S., Joel Brind, Ph. D

Published by
Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, 9 Vassar St., Poughkeepsie. NY