Roundup: Clinic Violence, Clinic Closure, and Abstinence Ed Tries Self-Funding

A plot to bomb a women's clinic is discovered, one of Missouri's two clinics can't provide abortions for a month, and abstinence education groups get to get the raise money to get government funds.

Potential clinic violence has been thwarted in North Carolina, where a man who allegedly was plotting to bomb a women’s clinic has been arrested.

Via WSOC – Charlotte:

A Concord man gave bomb-making advice to someone he thought was planning to bomb a women’s health clinic, U.S. Attorney John Stone Jr. said.Justin Moose, 26, was arrested Tuesday and is charged with providing information related to the making, use or manufacture of an explosive, destructive device or weapon of mass destruction.A criminal complaint alleges that Moose used Facebook to advocate violence against women’s health clinics, specifically ones where abortions are performed, and employees at those clinics. Moose claimed to be a member of a group called the “Army of God,” federal agents said in a 19-page affidavit, and made multiple threatening remarks aimed clinic employees.

According to the Charlotte Observer, the man considered himself a “Christian Osama Bin Laudin” and had no issues with expressing himself as such in social networks:

Justin Carl Moose, 26, is a self-described “extremist, radical” and the “Christian counterpart of Osama bin Laden,” according to an affidavit filed by FBI agents. Agents arrested Moose, who lives in a northwest Concord neighborhood, on Tuesday.

His arrest followed an investigation that began after Planned Parenthood alerted the FBI to a Facebook page registered to Moose, which the group said was advocating extreme violence against abortion providers.

Agents began monitoring the page and Moose’s private messages. They say he collaborated last week with a confidential informant to plan the bombing of an abortion clinic in North Carolina.

According to the FBI affidavit, Moose advocated violence for a variety of causes and communicated with like-minded abortion opponents online.

Moose’s Facebook page, which was still public Thursday, contained posts expressing anger at abortion doctors, President Barack Obama’s health care plan, and plans to build a mosque near ground zero in New York City. It also included expressions of support for those who have killed abortion providers.

“Whatever you may think about me, you’re probably right,” he wrote on his Facebook page, according to the affidavit.

“Extremist, Radical, Fundamentalist…? Yep! Terrorist…? Well, I prefer the term ‘freedom Fighter.'”

The page also said Moose is the father of three and searching for employment.

Status updates posted beginning in January urge violence, FBI agents said in their affidavit.

“The Death Care Bill passed last night,” he wrote when Obama’s health care plan was approved in March. “Keep your phone and rifle close and wait.”

“There are few problems in life that can’t be solved with the proper application of high explosives :)” Moose wrote two months later.

“If a mosque is built on ground zero, it will be removed. Oklahoma City style. Tim’s not the only man out there that knows how to do it,” the affidavit says he wrote in July, in a reference to Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City.

In other clinic news, a clinic in Missouri has had to close its doors temporarily due to physician scheduling issues, the Maneater reports:

The Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic has stopped providing abortions, but its leader says the service has only been stopped temporarily.

“It’s not that we are no longer providing abortions in Columbia,” said Peter Brownlie, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. “We utilize physicians as they are available, and we happen to be at a point that the physicians in Columbia aren’t currently available due to scheduling issues.”

The temporary halt of abortion services in Columbia leaves St. Louis as the only city in Missouri where an abortion can be legally obtained. Brownlie acknowledged that that would inconvenience some women.

“It’s unfortunate, because those who wish to obtain an abortion will have to travel larger distances,” Brownlie said. “It’s regrettable and will create a challenge for folks.”

Despite rumors of a possibly prolonged absence of abortion services in Columbia, Brownlie remained optimistic that abortions would be offered again in the near future.

“We’re working with the doctors, and I’m hopeful we will (provide abortions) by the end of the month, if not sooner,” Brownlie said.

The closure shows how difficult it can be for many women to access abortion services, even though it is legal, due to inability to find close access to a clinic with available doctors.  With the imposition of 24-hour waiting periods requiring two appointments for women in many states, obtaining the service becomes a logistical nightmare, according to the Columbia Tribune:

A new state law took effect Aug. 28 requiring a physician or qualified health professional to show a woman an ultrasound of her fetus 24 hours before the abortion. The medical professional also must provide more counseling, and the woman must sign informed consent documents in person 24 hours before the procedure, among other requirements. Brownlie denied these requirements have generated problems for physicians. He said the new law has had the greatest effect on the women.

“That increases the burden on women who travel or who have to make child care arrangements or take time off of work,” Brownlie said. “It doesn’t increase the burden on physicians.”

Finally, states are still deciding whether to accept federal comprehensive sex ed funding, or abstinence only funding that requires the states to provide matching funds.  In Arkansas, abstinence only groups are basically raising money to fund themselves, after learing the state would not apply for the abstinence funds due to the expense.

From The Body:

Arkansas has applied for federal grants for both abstinence-based comprehensive sex education and abstinence-only programming, state Department of Health officials said Friday. In August, the department announced that the state did not have the necessary 43 percent in state matching funds to pursue the abstinence-only grant. That changed when a state lawmaker and two groups pledged to raise private funds for the state’s portion, said Ann Wright, a spokesperson for ADH.

The abstinence-only grant application was “written with the stipulation that all state matching funds are provided by the private sector agencies who receive the funds,” Wright said. The state will decide which agencies will receive abstinence-only grants. The application is for $619,862, with $467,615 to be raised by private groups.

In June, the Conway-based group Choosing to Excel approached Rep. Robbie Wills (D-Conway) about raising money for the state’s part of the obligation in order to secure federal abstinence funds, Wills said. Several existing abstinence programs will have to work together to raise the funds, said Thelma Moton, CTE’s executive director.

I guess that’s looking out for your own self-interest.

Mini Roundup: Do magazines romanticized teen motherhood?  Well, sometimes internet posts can, too.

September 9, 2010