ProWomanProLife

Planned Parenthood is suing another state.

PIERRE, S.D. — Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit in federal court yesterday seeking to block a South Dakota law that would require women seeking abortions to face the nation’s longest waiting period — three days — and undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers that discourage abortion.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to suspend the law until a final ruling on whether it violates a woman’s constitutional right to abortion established under the US Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade. The law is set to take effect July1.

The legal challenge was filed in Sioux Falls, where Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota operates South Dakota’s only abortion clinic.

State Representative Roger Hunt, Republican of Brandon, the chief sponsor of the bill, said the lawsuit was expected.

“I don’t understand why, because it just seeks to give women more information, and it seeks to remove coercion, seeks to deal with a number of coercion elements where you have possible rapes and problems within families and whatnot, and we’re trying to help those women deal with that coercion,’’ said Hunt.

Survey says one in three German students would consider sex work to pay for school.

Now that would be shocking, however, my hope is that it is purely theoretical since higher education in Deutschland is free.

From Texas,

AUSTIN — A sonogram bill that would require women seeking an abortion to hear a detailed description of their fetus, as well as be presented images and heartbeats, won Senate approval Monday, moving it closer to becoming one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation.

Women could opt out of seeing the sonogram or listening to a heartbeat, if it is detectable, but almost all would have to listen to a doctor outline what organs and extremities have developed. The measure was tentatively approved, 21-10, and faces one more vote before it heads back to the House.[...]

A tougher sonogram bill already has passed the House. Bill author Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, said he will review the Senate version and is likely to ask the full House to accept the changes so it can be sent quickly to the governor, who has supported the bill.

Under the bill, all women would be required to have a sonogram within 24 hours of the abortion procedure, even if they recently had the test. A daylong wait would then be required, except for women who live more than 100 miles from an abortion facility; they could have an abortion the same day as the sonogram.

In almost all early pregnancies, a sonogram is performed with a vaginal probe. Women could avert their eyes if they choose not to see the image.

In all cases — except for medical emergencies, rape, incest or minors who have a judge’s order allowing the abortion — the women would have to hear a detailed explanation of fetal development.

Abortion Debate: Is it moral? Should it be illegal?

Tuesday, March 8 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm

Scotiabank Auditorium, Marion McCain Arts & Social Sciences Bldg 

6135 University Avenue

Halifax, NS

*On the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day*
Free event, open to the public. There will be opportunities for the audience to pose questions to each opponent. 

Stephanie Gray of the controversial Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform will debate Dr. Mark Mercer of Saint Mary’s University on whether abortion is moral, and the legal implications of its morality. Stephanie Gray will argue that abortion is immoral, while Dr.Mercer will argue it is not immoral.

When people say a child is or would be an “excessive burden” to the health care system, my stomach turns and I quietly wait for them to finish. When the government says it, it’s time for all of us to speak up.

To federal officials, it’s the cost of admitting an immigrant family whose daughter has cerebral palsy: $5,259 a year.

To a father, it’s an unfair and unfeeling calculation.

“It’s really tough to hear your daughter reduced to a number and described as an excessive burden,” said David Barlagne yesterday after lawyers and immigration officials argued before a Federal Court judge on the fate of the Barlagne family.

Persuaded to immigrate here from France and establish a business, the Barlagnes may now have to return because of the “excessive burden” of $5,259 a year in extra education costs that their 7-year-old daughter Rachel’s cerebral palsy would impose on the public.

The family’s level of income and savings makes her “medically inadmissible” to permanently live in Canada, court was told.

[...]

But lawyer Stéphane Minson said the system discriminates against disabled children, and the law must change.

“A child should not be reduced to a financial figure,” Mr. Minson said. “But it’s clear this is becoming a political debate, and it’s less a question of law than morality.”

To me, $5,259 a year for education costs actually isn’t that big of a number, not when you compare sometimes astronomically high private school tuition. But parents pay for that themselves, right?

Private school costs may surprise you, in some cases. Quite a number of schools that list with us have tuition starting under $4,000 per year for elementary levels. Independent private schools in provinces that provide some government funding may even have yearly tuition rates below $1000.

Oh look, government funding to private schools! So why can’t we fund the relatively inexpensive cost to meet Rachel’s needs? You can sign the petition to keep Rachel and her family in Canada here.

Carlton Lifeline’s struggle continues,

…effectively banning these groups is stifling political debate in a way that would ultimately be defeated in court, legal experts say.”I think a freedom-of-expression issue would be raised,” said Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

“In my view, probably denying the right to a pro-life group to express themselves would not be acceptable.”

The Carleton anti-abortion club was told their constitution conflicts with the association’s discrimination on campus policy. That policy reads: “any campaign, distribution, solicitation, lobbying effort, display, event etc. that seeks to limit or remove a woman’s right to choose her options in the case of pregnancy will not be supported.”

The group’s lawyer, Albertos Polizogopoulos, said that policy contradicts the association’s own governing bylaws.

Those bylaws outline one of the association’s aims as “maintaining an academic and social environment free from prejudice, exploitation, abuse or violence on the basis of, but not limited to, sex, race, language, religion, age, national or social status, political affiliation or belief, sexual orientation or marital status.”

“CUSA labels themselves as a pro-choice organization,” Polizogopoulos said. “They’re discriminating against pro-life clubs based on those pro-life clubs political beliefs.”

He said his clients plan on fighting their trespassing charges when they go to court.

Women still don’t know much about baby-making… That’s the conclusion I get from an otherwise very long and tediously non-judgmental article on egg freezing.

Women are born with a finite number of eggs. At birth a woman’s ovaries contain approximately one to two million oocytes — immature eggs; by puberty, the count drops to 400,000. During each menstrual cycle, about 1,000 oocytes begin to develop but only one becomes a mature egg. The others left behind die. Not only does the supply shrink but egg quality decreases over time as well, since the best eggs are used up when young, so that each egg now offers less chance of pregnancy and a higher risk of miscarriage.

By the time a woman reaches age 39, “there aren’t many (follicles) left that have got enough strength to raise their hand,” says Dr. Al Yuzpe, co-founder and co-director of the Genesis Fertility Centre of Vancouver.

“My usual response is, ‘You may not look 40, you may not feel 40 but your ovaries don’t know it,’ ” Yuzpe says. He frequently encounters women who had no idea of the limits of their fertility. “They’re not only shocked, they’re tearful, they’re angry. ‘Nobody told me that I wasn’t going to be able to get pregnant at 48.’ ”

I don’t expect everyone to know every detail about the production of eggs in female humans. And I speak as someone who knows fairly little, beyond the basics. But I always knew that if I waited too long, I wouldn’t be able to have children. What do you mean, nobody told you that you weren’t going to be able to get pregnant at 48? There’s not much point “educating” people who just won’t listen.

There’s a new website sponsored by Students for Life of America (US), National Campus Life Network (Canada), Law Students for Life (US), Students for Life of Illinois (US), Rock for Life (US), and LifeNews.com (US). It’s called Stand With Carleton. Find out more about it, here.

Apparently, not much:

We were quick to discover, as pro-life students at Carleton University are learning all too well, that power to the people and all that jazz is a courtesy rarely extended to the pro-life community on university campuses.

At Carleton today, it’s about graphic images. In Halifax, 25 years ago, it was about Feminists for Life pamphlets saying “Peace begins in the womb.” The problem then, isn’t how the message is conveyed. The problem is that the pro-life message is conveyed at all.

Ah, the youth of today. So open-minded. So tolerant.