Roundup: The Harm Caused By Anti-Choicers

Today's roundup is all about the harm caused by those who oppose abortion so strongly, they ignore all the other harm they are creating for women and doctors.

First up, as the trial of Scott Roeder continues the jury selection process today Judge Warren Wilbert has decided to question potential jurors in private. However he did agree to release a blank jury questionnaire.

After the closed hearing, Vix said Wilbert had agreed to open parts of jury selection to the public but that individual jurors will first be questioned in private about "sensitive personal issues."

The focus of the individual questioning will involve personal beliefs about abortion, the judge and the lawyers have said, and whether they can set those aside to listen to evidence in the murder trial from both sides.

The shooting of Dr. George Tiller has upped the ante again for anti-choice crusaders. Operation Rescue is now offering a reward for "whistle-blowers" who report on abortion doctors.

A Kansas-based anti-abortion group is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of abortion doctors who break the law.

Operation Rescue announced its Abortion Whistleblower campaign Thursday.

The campaign will include a series of radio and Internet ads, as well as direct mailings to abortion clinics across the country asking clinic workers to report clinic abuses.

The group's campaign follows Nebraska abortion doctor LeRoy Carhart's announcement last month that he will likely perform more late-term procedures at his Bellevue, Neb.-based clinic.

Meanwhile remember Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown's attack of conscious for all the poor hospital staff who would have been required to give emergency contraception to rape victims? Well the Boston Phoenix says it probably was because Brown owed the Catholic Church a favor for getting him elected.

The state legislature wanted to make the hospital provide the pill. The Catholic Church opposed that mandate. (Abraham, in her otherwise excellent column, suggests that the law was largely about allowing individual practitioners to opt out. While that would have been an effect, the legislative battle was entirely about the state's Catholic hospitals' refusal, as policy, to offer emergency contraception.)

There's a legitimate debate to be had on that issue (not to mention, on whether the refusal to provide the pill is an act of good "conscience"), and that debate was waged among the Democrats controlling the legislature, and the Church lost. So, they needed a Republican to try a Stupak-like attempt to introduce a "conscience clause" amendment to the mandate bill, in hopes that they could pressure enough legislators to win an open up-or-down vote. They got Brown to introduce it.

And frankly, his daughters may very well be correct when they insist that this was not because Brown is a cold-hearted, misogynistic bastard. Instead, it was more likely because he owed a big favor to the cold-hearted, misogynistic Church, which had just played a major role in getting him elected.

Lastly a bill in Kentucky requiring all women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound has been passed by the Senate's Judiciary Committee.

Similar bills have passed the Republican-controlled Senate in recent legislative sessions but died in the House, which is controlled by Democrats.

[Bill sponsor Sen. Elizabeth Tori, R-Radcliff] said that this year's bill goes further than the one she sponsored last year in that it requires the physicians to explain what the ultrasound shows, including the "number of unborn children depicted" and the presence of organs and "external members," such as arms and legs.

Considering all the effort anti-choice groups put into trying to tie abortion to medical problems, it's worth noting that Henry P. David, a clinical psychologist who "helped alter the prevailing assumption among clinicians that abortion was a source of mental health problems in women" recently died.

In the late 1960s, Dr. David became one of the first to study the psychological aftermath of abortion. He guided younger psychologists to do similar research, and their combined efforts helped alter the prevailing assumption among clinicians that abortion was a source of mental health problems in women.

Their work influenced the public debate. As opposition to abortion mounted in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan asked Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to prepare a report on the psychological effects of abortion. Koop, a vocal antiabortionist, was widely expected to denounce abortion as a risk to women's mental health.

After surveying 250 studies, including those by Dr. David and scientists he had mentored, Koop refused to issue the report, citing inconclusive evidence. Koop later called the psychological harm caused by abortion "minuscule from a public health perspective.''

Bonus item: Canada's Supreme Court rejects anti-tax crusader's right to refuse paying taxes because of abortion.

January 15, 2010

Princeton Plan B The Daily Princetonian

'Political chameleon' Ford is neither pro-choice nor anti-choice on abortion ... New York Daily News

Hillary Clinton attempts to redefine UN agreement by adding abortion  Catholic News Agency

Henry David dies; psychologist studied abortion's effects Washington Post

January 14, 2010

Couple's Adoption Of Haitian Boy Derailed By Quake CBS 13

Families worry about children's food, adoption papers ABC7Chicago.com

Franken And Snowe Write Bill To Make Morning-After Pill Available To Servicewomen TPM LiveWire

It's a Good Thing for Martha Coakley That There Are No Catholics in Massachusetts ... National Review Online

Will Kay Bailey Hutchison Re-Affirm Her Pro Choice Stance Tonight? Burnt Orange Report

Americans evenly split on abortion health coverage Seattle Post Intelligencer

Please stop appropriating feminism Feministing

Congressman: Stupak, Pro-Life Democrats Hold Fast on Health Care, Abortion LifeNews.com

Record Number of Pro-Life College Students Attend Youth Conference on Abortion LifeNews.com

Texas Pro-Life Group Chides Kay Bailey Hutchinson for Pro-Abortion Stance LifeNews.com

Pro-life group calls for 'real health care' on press tour Catholic News Agency

Women's issues back on the agenda for US The Post-Standard

Pro-Choice but Spreading Natural Family Planning Lifesite

Abortion becomes issue in Massachusetts race for US Senate Catholic News Agency

Murder trial shines national spotlight on abortion debate CNN

Top court rejects anti-abortion crusader's tax case National Post

Abortion bill clears Senate committee Louisville Courier-Journal

Anti-abortion group offers reward for information on abortion doctors KFSM

Abortion bill passes senate committee WYMT

Signs Declaring Women Do Regret Abortion Will Flood March for Life Event LifeNews.com

More Taxpayer Funding of Abortion in the Senate Health Bill Heritage.org

Anti-abortion bill advances in Kentucky UPI.com

Poll: 67 Percent of Americans Oppose Funding Abortion in Health Care Bill LifeNews.com

Hillary Clinton Promotes Fundraising Push for Pro-Abortion Reproductive Health LifeNews.com

Ryan Believes Stupak 'Holding Firm' on Abortion Language Human Events

Is there any common ground on abortion? The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Yaz, Yasmin Birth Control Pills Prompt New Round of Lawsuits Catholic Online