Friday, February 25, 2011

Pro-abortion bill would wipe out all protections for unborn, women

The following MCCL news release was issued today, Feb. 25.

ST. PAUL — A bill to eliminate all protections for unborn children and their mothers has been introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives. If enacted, the measure would be the most extreme pro-abortion, rights-denying law the state has ever seen.

"House File 646 sets a new standard for pro-abortion extremism," said Scott Fischbach, Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL), the state's oldest and largest pro-life organization. "Under the guise of 'privacy,' a handful of legislators are seeking to increase the authority of abortion centers so that no teenage girl, unborn child or pregnant woman is safe."

H.F. 646 is authored by Rep. Jim Davnie, DFL-Minneapolis. The measure's five other co-authors all represent Twin Cities metro area districts.

Their legislation would eliminate Minnesota's protective parental notification law, which ensures that parents of minor girls are involved in their daughters' decision-making regarding abortion. Such a move would put the health of minor girls at greater risk. The state's parental notification law has been a major factor in the dramatic drop in abortions performed on teenage girls. Abortions performed on minors in 2009 dropped to their lowest point since 1975.

The bill's language parrots the tired demands of the abortion industry, which has opposed even the most modest protections for pregnant women and their unborn children. Women would be denied the right to factual informed consent information prior to undergoing an abortion procedure, keeping them in the dark about abortion risks, complications and alternatives. Pregnant women would not be told that their unborn child can feel pain at 20 weeks from conception, or that pain-reducing medication is available for their child prior to a brutal dismemberment abortion, for example.

H.F. 646 would also codify into state law the abortion industry's insistence that taxpayers fund elective abortions. Since 1995, Minnesotans have been forced to pay more than $15 million for 50,000 abortions because of a court ruling.

"This bill is clearly an attempt by the state's abortion industry to deny low-income and vulnerable pregnant women their right to know what abortion is and that there are life-giving alternatives," Fischbach said. "MCCL calls upon all state lawmakers to reject this attempt to deny women their right to informed consent prior to an abortion. Legislators are elected to uphold the will of the people — the majority of whom oppose abortion — not the radical agenda of abortion advocates."

MCCL is Minnesota's oldest and largest pro-life organization with more than 70,000 member families and 240 chapters across the state. For more information about MCCL, visit www.mccl.org.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Peter Singer: Taking the abortion ethic seriously

When the principle of fundamental human equality is implicitly or explicitly rejected in order to exclude unborn human beings from equal respect and protection, various criteria -- always arbitrary, changeable, degreed, without a firm foundation -- are proposed to determine which members of the species Homo sapiens should count as rights-bearing persons deserving of respect, and which should not. Those criteria inevitably have horrifying implications (beyond the horror of abortion itself).

Peter Singer
According to Princeton philosopher Peter Singer, for example, unborn human beings are not "persons" (and therefore may be killed) because they lack certain acquired properties that he deems morally relevant. (This is the standard approach of philosophers or ethicists who defend the moral permissibility of abortion.) But already-born infants -- and some severely disabled human beings -- also lack those properties. So, Singer concludes, it may be permissible to kill them as well.

It seems to me that our society can go one of two ways: (1) We can choose to follow the abortion logic where it leads -- infanticide, euthanasia, ongoing debates about when a child is really a "person" (what characteristics should make the difference?), debates about when a disabled or elderly human being no longer merits equal respect, etc.; or (2) The self-evident moral horror of such practices can drive us to reassess the "pro-choice" view of human value from which they stem, leading us to affirm respect and restore protection for every member of the human family, at every stage of development and in every condition.

Why Planned Parenthood should be stripped of government funding

The U.S. House voted last week to deny federal government funds to Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading performer of abortions. Planned Parenthood currently receives some $360 million taxpayer dollars each year, and performs more than 300,000 abortions.

Why should Planned Parenthood be stripped of federal funding? I can think of a few good reasons.

1) Contrary to what some members of Congress have claimed, federal funding of Planned Parenthood does work to support abortion. Although the Hyde Amendment prohibits direct federal funding of most abortions, the money Planned Parenthood receives is fungible. Federal dollars free up other funds and enable Planned Parenthood's abortion-promoting work to thrive. The more government money the group has received over the years, the (many) more abortions it has performed, even as the total number of abortions nationwide has declined. I don't know of any way to interpret the facts such that funding Planned Parenthood does not have the effect of supporting abortion and increasing the number of abortions. The government should not force taxpayers to be complicit.

2) Planned Parenthood has shown itself to be (even apart from abortion) morally bankrupt, and ridiculously undeserving of public money. For example, recent undercover investigations, in addition to actual cases, have shown a clear pattern of Planned Parenthood employees breaking the law and turning a blind eye to statutory rape and underage sex trafficking.

3) Planned Parenthood bears the burden of demonstrating that it should receive government money in the first place. The group already rakes in money from patient fees and large donors, and it is not at all clear that Planned Parenthood needs federal funding to continue whatever decent (non-abortion) health services it may provide. Nor is it clear that those services are not better provided by other organizations and programs, and there are many of them. In fact, the Planned Parenthood funding ban does not affect government funding levels at all, but merely diverts funds away from Planned Parenthood and toward other (better) organizations and services that provide health care for low-income women.

It seems to me that even pro-choice members of Congress should vote to deny Planned Parenthood taxpayer money -- whether because they think it is not appropriate to force pro-life taxpayers to subsidize the abortion industry, or because they care about victims of sex trafficking, or simply because they have a sense of fiscal responsibility. Or, hopefully, all three.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

In Ghana, maternal mortality a national emergency as promotion of abortion continues

The following news release was issued yesterday, Feb. 22, by MCCL GO.

On the 26th anniversary of legalized abortion in Ghana, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Global Outreach (MCCL GO) has released a new report that analyzes the maternal mortality rate, legal abortion and Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5) in Ghana. The full report is available at the MCCL GO website.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and leading health authorities have concluded that Ghana will not meet MDG 5, which calls for reducing the maternal mortality rate by 75 percent. Instead of a significant reduction, the latest statistics have health officials declaring it a "national emergency."

The 2007 Ghana Maternal Health Survey estimates a maternal mortality rate of 580 deaths per 100,000 live births. Other estimates suggest an increase from a rate of 214 in 1993 to 560 in 2007.

On Feb. 22, 1985, the Ghanaian government broadly legalized abortion. The policy has not bettered the health of the Ghanaian people. Indeed, 26 years after abortion was legalized, "Improving maternal health and reducing maternal and neonatal mortality is the Ministry of Health's first priority," explains WHO.

"Africa's greatest resource is its people," stated Scott Fischbach, Executive Director of MCCL GO. "Ghana's approach of legalizing abortion not only aborts a nation's future, it also contributes to a great loss of life among its women."

The MCCL GO analysis reveals Ghana's health authorities have been pushing abortion on the women of their country. In 2003 the Ghana Health Service developed a strategic plan for the provision of abortion with the goal of reducing maternal deaths; in 2006 that plan was fully implemented. Yet more than four years after the 2006 guidelines were adopted, DailyGuideGhana.com reported, "The country's stringent efforts at reducing [the] maternal mortality rate seem to be failing miserably, as reports indicate that the rate is soaring across the country."

This misguided focus on abortion promotion has diverted attention and resources from actually improving women's health through pre-natal and obstetric care—care that truly helps women and their babies.

"Countries on the African continent are being pressured by the U.S. Obama administration, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Marie Stopes International and the International Planned Parenthood Federation to legalize abortion," Fischbach observed. "These nations ought to take note of the situation in Ghana. It is only in the delivery of adequate health care to women that they will reduce maternal mortality rates—not by legalizing and promoting abortion."

MCCL GO is a pro-life global outreach program of the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Education Fund with one goal: to save as many innocent lives as possible from the destruction of abortion. Learn more at www.mccl-go.org.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

NARAL co-founder, pro-life convert Bernard Nathanson passes away

"I am one of those who helped usher in this barbaric age."
-- Bernard Nathanson

Dr. Bernard Nathanson has died. Nathanson was a co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), director in the early 1970s of the largest abortion facility in the world, and one of the nation's leading abortion advocates. He performed about 5,000 abortions himself, and said that he was "personally responsible" for more than 75,000.

Then his mind was changed, and he became an immensely influential pro-life advocate, writing books (Aborting America) and making documentary films (The Silent Scream, Eclipse of Reason) in opposition to the grave injustice of abortion.

What changed Nathanson's mind? An increasing awareness of the humanity of the unborn child.

"Modern technologies have convinced us that beyond question the unborn child is simply another human being, another member of the human community, indistinguishable in every way from any of us."

After becoming pro-life, Nathanson admitted the outright lies (wildly inflated estimates of illegal abortions, maternal deaths) he and others told to propel the pro-abortion movement in the years leading up to Roe v. Wade.

"This [my responsibility for abortions] was the greatest mistake of my life, and legal abortion was the greatest mistake this nation has ever conceived. It must be brought to an end after 50 million deaths of unborn babies."

See the statement by National Right to Life mourning the death of Dr. Nathanson.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Video: 2011 MCCL March for Life

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Duluth church to raise funds for abortion

The following MCCL news release was issued today, Feb. 17, 2011.

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) is calling on the Rev. Kathryn Nelson of Peace United Church of Christ in Duluth, Minn., to cancel a fundraiser scheduled at her church for HOTDISH Militia, an abortion funding group.

The fundraising event, to be held on March 19, is a hotdish bake-off with several different categories: vegetarian, dessert, ethnic and Lutheran Ladies. All profits from the event are to go to the Militia, based in northern Minnesota, an affiliate of the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) that directly pays for abortions. The Militia works directly with Women's Health Center of Duluth, the region's abortion center.

In a letter to Rev. Nelson, MCCL Executive Director Scott Fischbach appealed to the minister to cancel the event so as to remain true to the church's vision statement. According to its website, Peach Church is guided by the following statement: "Our vision is to be an accessible, open and affirming community growing in Christian faith, committed to peace and justice, and reaching out in healing love to all people, respecting the diversity of people's sexual orientation, race, culture, gender, age, opinions, and physical and mental abilities."

Fischbach asked, "How does raising money to kill innocent, defenseless members of the human family fit with this vision?"

The Women's Health Center of Duluth received $37,043 in state taxpayer dollars in 2008 to kill 155 unborn babies; the center aborted 609 unborn children that year. And although this abortion center receives state monies for abortions, it is not regulated or inspected by state health officials.

MCCL's Fischbach stated in his letter to Rev. Nelson, "Regardless of one's political stance on the legality of abortion, it is a scientific fact that abortion kills unborn human beings, usually by brutal dismemberment, and also hurts many women. Abortion is an act of violence, not of peace."

MCCL is Minnesota's oldest and largest pro-life organization with more than 70,000 member families and 240 chapters across the state. For more information about MCCL, visit www.mccl.org.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Justin Bieber, abortion and the millennial generation

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, 16-year-old Justin Bieber, who was born to a single teen mom, says: "I really don't believe in abortion. It's like killing a baby?"

From LifeNews.com:
Scott Fischbach, who heads the pro-life group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, had speculated before today's interview went public that Bieber may be pro-life because so many millennials are pro-life based on abortion's consequences and seeing ultrasound images.

"Honest and frank talk from Justin Bieber about life issues is awesome and will hopefully encourage more young people to join the cause of life," he told LifeNews.com. "Poll after poll show that younger people are pro-life and now Bieber joins those majority ranks. Gone are the days when pro-life artists and performers needed to hide or keep their pro-life views out of the public."

"Years ago when Madonna released 'Papa Don't Preach,' it touched off a wave of pro-life sentiment as the lyrics boldly proclaimed, "I am keeping my baby." Hopefully Bieber's honest comments about how abortions kill babies will do the same. Pro-lifers can be proud to have another supporter like Justin Bieber," he added.

Is abortion funding 'a matter of equity'?

A recent Star Tribune editorial ("Reject new limits on abortion rights," Feb. 7) argues in favor of the current Minnesota policy of state (taxpayer) funding of abortions. Since abortion is legal, the authors reason, taxpayers should foot the bill for abortions for women who cannot afford them. But it does not follow that if a practice is legal, then it should be subsidized by the government. Owning a gun is legal, but I am not entitled to receive one if I cannot pay for it.

The editorial claims that state abortion funding is "a matter of equity" and that "a woman should not be denied this important reproductive choice simply because of her income." But this argument assumes that abortion is a moral good, an assumption with which most people do not agree. "[I]t is not true that the vices of the wealthy are virtues simply because the poor are denied them," writes philosopher Francis J. Beckwith.

Current Minnesota policy forces every taxpayer, including those who are pro-life, to subsidize the practice of abortion. Both sides of the abortion debate should agree that this is not an appropriate use of public money.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Truth, love and the pro-life movement

Christopher Tollefsen writes:
The pro-life movement is at an advantage over its pro-choice opposition in the struggle over the value of unborn human life for two simple reasons: truth and love.

Truth, because the pro-life movement is founded on a set of scientific facts about unborn human beings. The zygote, the embryo, the fetus: all are members of the species homo sapiens, individual human beings just as much as any reader, or the author, of this article. On this truth, developmental biology has converged with remarkable unanimity, and efforts to obscure this by referring to unborn human beings as "clumps of cells," and "tissue," or as merely "embryos" and "fetuses," are bound to fail.

Love, because the pro-life movement is founded on an ethical claim: that all human beings are deserving of the same fundamental form of respect. All deserve to be treated as equal in their humanity and dignity. Love and respect for all human beings are, like the truths of biology previously mentioned, lessons learned over a long time, and honored all too often in the breach rather than the observance. Yet these are moral truths that the pro-life movement strives to bring to the minds and hearts of all who consider the worth of unborn human life.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

The problem with Planned Parenthood is at its core

Christopher Tollefsen, writing about Planned Parenthood:
It is no exaggeration to say that the corruption in Planned Parenthood's rank and file merely reflects the profound moral error at the core of an organization that must deny truth and love so as to destroy life.

Planned Parenthood's very mission infects its practice, revealing it to be a parody of a real medical organization. A willingness to help all in need, and to protect patients' privacy and confidentiality, are important parts of the practice of medicine. Yet these virtues are perverted by employees willing to overlook crimes, such as sex trafficking, that are among the most grievous harms that can be inflicted upon women. By trying to enable a pimp to get his underage prostitutes medical care for venereal diseases, the New Jersey Planned Parenthood worker, subsequently fired, showed herself unable to distinguish between providing medical help, and aiding in the systematic abuse of women.

The worker's shady ethics reflect the confusion of an organization that persistently and deliberately conflates killing and care. In its continuing propaganda onslaught, Planned Parenthood passes up no opportunity to identify its purpose as "reproductive health." Yet the provision of abortion is clearly not a form of health care, reproductive or otherwise. Indeed, it is the very opposite.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The reasons for late abortions in Minnesota

The Star Tribune claims, "Typically, later pregnancy terminations [after the first trimester] occur only after a tragic fetal diagnosis has been made or when the pregnancy has resulted from rape or incest." I decided to check the facts.

The main abortion method used after the first trimester of pregnancy is dilation and evacuation (D & E). A total of 753 D & E abortions were performed in Minnesota in 2009 (latest numbers available), according to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). A total of 1,398 abortions were performed at 13 weeks gestation or later -- after the first trimester.

Meanwhile, 75 women said their pregnancies were a result of rape or incest (less than one percent of total abortions). And 160 of the women having abortions cited fetal anomalies (about one percent of all abortions). Since women may give more than one reason for having an abortion (in the MDH report), this means that no more than 235 women had abortions "after a tragic fetal diagnosis has been made or when the pregnancy has resulted from rape or incest."

Many of those 235 abortions (especially the ones resulting from rape and incest) probably took place in the first trimester. But even if we assume that they all occurred in the second trimester, only 16.8 percent of second-trimester abortions would be due to fetal anomaly, rape or incest.

The most common reasons given for abortion are "does not want children at this time" (64 percent of Minnesota abortions) and "economic reasons" (31 percent).

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Ronald Reagan on abortion and the value of all human life

In honor of the 100th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan's birth, I have compiled some of Reagan's reflections on abortion, Roe v. Wade, and the value of all human life.

From a 1980 presidential debate:
With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there's one individual who's not being considered at all. That's the one who is being aborted. And I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.
Excerpts from Reagan's 1983 "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation":
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court's result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion "is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be." Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a "right" so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.

As an act of "raw judicial power" (to use Justice White's biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority in Roe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court's decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead, Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.

Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: " ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. ...

Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.

What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn't feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don't know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn. ...

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have. ...

The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species. They did disagree over the value question, whether to give value to a human life at its early and most vulnerable stages of existence.

Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value. Some have said that only those individuals with "consciousness of self" are human beings. One such writer has followed this deadly logic and concluded that "shocking as it may seem, a newly born infant is not a human being."

A Nobel Prize winning scientist has suggested that if a handicapped child "were not declared fully human until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice." In other words, "quality control" to see if newly born human beings are up to snuff.

Obviously, some influential people want to deny that every human life has intrinsic, sacred worth. They insist that a member of the human race must have certain qualities before they accord him or her status as a "human being." ...

Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are not. As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the "quality of life" ethic.

I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. American was founded by men and women who shared a vision of the value of each and every individual. They stated this vision clearly from the very start in the Declaration of Independence, using words that every schoolboy and schoolgirl can recite: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

We fought a terrible war to guarantee that one category of mankind — black people in America — could not be denied the inalienable rights with which their Creator endowed them. ...

We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place. Doctors today know that unborn children can feel a touch within the womb and that they respond to pain. But how many Americans are aware that abortion techniques are allowed today, in all 50 states, that burn the skin of a baby with a salt solution, in an agonizing death that can last for hours? ...

As we continue to work to overturn Roe v. Wade, we must also continue to lay the groundwork for a society in which abortion is not the accepted answer to unwanted pregnancy. Pro-life people have already taken heroic steps, often at great personal sacrifice, to provide for unwed mothers. ...

Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.
See also Reagan's Emancipation Proclamation of Preborn Children.

Below is a video in which Reagan discusses abortion, "unwanted" children and adoption. See also videos here and here of Reagan talking about abortion.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Planned Parenthood and sex trafficking

Below is the latest undercover video from Live Action. It shows a Planned Parenthood manager in New Jersey who has no problem with -- indeed, she helps to keep secret and "look as legit as possible" -- an underage sex trafficking ring. The manager has now been fired, but this is not an isolated incident.



From the press release:
Clinic manager Amy Woodruff, LPN, of Planned Parenthood Central New Jersey's Perth Amboy center, warns the pimp and his prostitute to have their trafficked underage girls lie about their age to avoid mandatory reporting laws, promising, "even if they lie, just say, 'Oh he's the same age as me, 15,' ... it's just that mainly 14 and under we have to, doesn't matter if their partner's the same age, younger, whatever, 14 and under we have to report." She says, "For the most part, we want as little information as possible." ...

If one of the young trafficked girls needs an abortion, Woodruff refers the pimp and prostitute to the Metropolitan Medical Association, where "their protocols aren't as strict as ours and they don't get audited the same way that we do." The prostitute in the video asks how long after the abortion until the girls can have sex again, and when Woodruff says "minimum of 2 weeks," she asks what sex acts the girls could still do to make money. Woodruff advises, "Waist up, or just be that extra action walking by" to advertise sex to potential clients.

Sex trafficking is punishable under federal law and carries a potential life sentence. ...

"This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Planned Parenthood intentionally breaks state and federal laws and covers up the abuse of the young girls it claims to serve," said Lila Rose, President of Live Action. "Time and time again, Planned Parenthood has sent young girls back into the arms of their abusers. They don't deserve a dime of the hundreds of millions they receive in federal funding from taxpayers. Congress must cease funding and the Department of Justice should investigate this corrupt organization immediately." 
Live Action President Lila Rose writes:
During the past three years of research, our team became aware of the horrific connection between human sex trafficking and "confidential" abortion clinics that refuse to report abuse. Read the testimonies of human trafficking victims. You'll find heartbreaking stories of manipulation, rape, sexually contracted diseases, and coerced abortion.

Think about it. Where is a pimp going to send his victims if they get pregnant on the "job"? An abortion clinic, and preferably one that won't ask any questions. What if those victims are young girls, kidnapped or drafted in from the US, or trafficked in from other nations? Planned Parenthood has demonstrated that they do not report abuse. They are experts at turning a blind eye and asking for "as little information as possible."

But would Planned Parenthood go as far as aiding and abetting the sex trafficking of underage girls?
The answer is yes.

The Live Action investigations have revealed a clear pattern of Planned Parenthood employees breaking the law, covering up sexual abuse, and pushing abortion. It is truly remarkable, and it suggests to me that Planned Parenthood -- the leading performer of abortions nationwide, founded in eugenics and devoted to killing developing human beings for profit -- is wicked to the core.

Women need to know: Minnesota abortion centers are unregulated, uninspected

The following MCCL news release was issued today, Feb. 2, 2011.

In wake of Pennsylvania clinic horrors, Minnesota women learn they are no safer

Revelations of filth, disease and murder at a Pennsylvania abortion center have shocked the nation as more grisly details are uncovered. One woman was drugged to death by an unlicensed clinic worker; abortionist Kermit Gosnell has been arrested and charged with this and seven additional murders of newborn babies.

Gosnell's center has been called a "house of horrors" by investigators, and rightly so. The story of his profit-driven business model, which made him a multi-millionaire while it victimized women, has led some in Minnesota to ask: How well are our abortion centers regulated?

"Women need to know that the state of Minnesota does not regulate or inspect abortion clinics at all," said Scott Fischbach, Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). "The state cannot assure women that the abuses which occurred in Gosnell’s abortion center will not occur here."

MCCL has worked hard to see abortion clinic licensing and inspection requirements passed by the Legislature. Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions legalizing abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, MCCL helped to pass a provision authorizing the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) to license and inspect abortion clinics in order to guarantee their safety for women. MDH subsequently drafted rules, which were immediately challenged in court by the abortion industry. The court ruled in favor of the abortion industry, which has remained unregulated and uninspected. Other MCCL efforts to protect women through passage of abortion center regulations have been thwarted by pro-abortion lawmakers.

Abortion center regulations consist of minimal health and safety standards necessary to ensure basic medical care for women before, during and after an abortion. Typical regulations include requirements that surgical instruments be sterilized, patient medical records be maintained, emergency care equipment is available and functioning, and post-procedural patient care and observation is provided.

"Minnesota government rightly regulates all manner of enterprises," Fischbach stated. "Every automobile and its owner must be licensed. Every doctor and hospital is licensed. Why don't we license and inspect abortion centers, which perform the most common surgical procedures in the nation?"