Life Issues

Help Texas fight illegal immigration instead of Rick Perry

Conservatives in Action: New Look

Take a look at the new look at Conservatives in Action.

“Red Sonja” reaches over 10,000 readers with her email newsletters, and her blog is sure to reach as many. If you want to read what Conservatives are thinking, read this blog!

New Obamacare Regulations mandate contraception, re-define pregnancy as disease

Tomorrow is the last day to comment on the Contraceptives mandate that is included in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “Obamacare.” I believe that it’s okay to use real contraceptives – the kind that don’t kill anyone. I’m also cautiously convinced that Plan B doesn’t prevent implantation. (See “Plan B, How It Works and Doesn’t Work,” and “Plan B compared to withdrawal method.”)

However, I have real concerns that “EllaOne” might interfere due to its effect of lowering progesterone, even in post-ovulatory women, and I know that the IntraUterine Device (IUD), when placed early in the pregnancy works to prevent implantation.

The current Administration defines pregnancy as beginning at implantation, not at fertilization, in spite of the known fact that any in vitro fertilization lab tech can tell the difference between an embryo and an unfertilized egg.

Please write a brief e-mail to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathryn Sebelius, at this address E-OHPSCA2713.EBSA@dol.gov

Here’s where to get more information:

MESSAGE TO HHS: “Pregnancy is not a disease, and drugs and surgeries to prevent it are not basic health care that the government should require all Americans to purchase. Please remove sterilization and prescription contraceptives from the list of “preventive services” the federal government is mandating in private health plans. It is especially important to exclude any drug that may cause an early abortion, and to fully respect religious freedom as other federal laws do. The narrow religious exemption in HHS’s new rule protects almost no one. I urge you to allow all organizations and individuals to offer, sponsor and obtain health coverage that does not violate their moral and religious convictions.”

WHEN: Please send in your comments to HHS by the September 30 deadline. Thanks! 9/1/11

“Judicial Hubris” exposed

TownHall.com had a column yesterday that covered some interesting news about the videos of the Proposition 8 trials in Federal Court. It seems that a couple of the Federal judges made videos of the trial proceedings public when they shouldn’t have.

Those of us who believe that marriage is a moral covenant, with moral obligations beyond legal and financial benefits, oppose renaming and redefining marriage to include same sex unions.
The fear is not that judges will face retaliation – it’s that witnesses will face harassment, loss of jobs, as reported in the article.
As to the frequent question, “what are you afraid of?” How about the decision that marriage is worth no more than a set of financial and legal benefits? That’s what the 9th Circuit decided in ruling on Arizona’s law limiting insurance benefits for State employees to spouses and children. Janet Napolitano issued an Executive Order on the way out of the State on her way to the Obama Administration, bestowing benefits on all domestic partners, married and unmarried, homo- or heterosexual. The 9th actually ruled that opposite sex couples could get married if they wanted insurance, but that Arizona law forbade same sex couples from marrying, so the law passed by the Legislature to cut costs – which affected cohabiting same sex couples – is “discrimination” against an “unpopular group.”

Build a straw man, make him die

When will the progressive left admit that ObamaCare is just one version of “spread the wealth? Because the healthcare plan mandates coverage for all illness or healthcare from first dollar, rather than only spending money for the indigent and extremely sick. Worse, the mandate enforces taxes, rather than allowing charity or compassionate care.

Slate.com has a blog post concerning ObamaCare written by Jacob Weisberg, entitled “Let him die.” The author flatly implies that one or more of the Republican Presidential candidates would let a patient die if he can not pay for needed care.

Forget that none of the candidates said any such thing. One man in the audience at Monday night’s debate for Republican Candidates  in Orlando shouted “yeah!” when one of the moderators asked Ron Paul the question. There’s dispute about whether the shout came before or after Congressman Paul answered, “No.”

This incident is being cited as “playing the death card” by another blogger, at the University of Chicago School of Law’s Richard Epstein, who  is not satisfied with calling Republicans names. He suggests that rationing is reasonable:

One telling illustration about this example is that Weisberg does not tell us whether the individual who receives this care lives or dies when the treatment is over.  If we assume the latter, the initial question is whether intensive care at, say, $10,000 to $20,000 per day represents the best use of social resources.  A bit of simple arithmetic says that society has spent $1.83 million to $3.66 million on a venture that may well have kept this person alive in a comatose state or have subjected him to repeated invasive treatments when hospice care may well have been preferable.

(Try not to think about “death panels.”)

Hat tip to Texas Medical Association and Drs.

amednews: Temporary health workers double risk of harmful drug mix-ups :: Sept. 12, 2011 … American Medical News

Several medical school faculty members and I were talking this week at the American Academy of Family Physicians’ national meeting. They confirmed that medical students and residents still do much of the “scut work” in the hospitals where they are trained. Some hospitals have evaluated the cost of training vs. the money saved by (very) cheap labor, and come to the realization that doctors in training save them tons of money over paid staff.

Just another reason to consider or re-consider funding for medical education in State and Federal budgets!

Health professionals working on a temporary basis in emergency departments are twice as likely to make medication errors that harm patients, says a study of nearly 24,000 drug mix-ups at 592 U.S. hospitals.

Most of the temp workers’ mistakes were administration mix-ups made by nursing staff, who accounted for 76% of the errors. Physicians were responsible for 21% of the mix-ups, and other health professionals accounted for the rest.

via amednews: Temporary health workers double risk of harmful drug mix-ups :: Sept. 12, 2011 … American Medical News.

One more time: Perry, Gardasil and the facts

Governor Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann went on Greta Van Sustern’s “On the Record” show on Fox News to accuse Governor Rick Perry of “crony capitalism” because of his Executive Order RP65, which would have mandated Gardasil and which did make it much easier for parents to opt out of all mandatory vaccines.

None of the players explain one very pertinent point: Merck was the only company making the only approved vaccine against the viruses that cause the changes that cause abnormal Pap smears and which lead to cervical cancer. (The only reason to get a pap smear is to check for changes from HPV. Gardasil provides immunity to the specific strains that cause nearly 3/4 of all cervical cancer.)

The Gardasil vaccine (more, here ) was recommended the FDA’s vaccine approval committee, more than 6 months before Governor Perry’s Executive Order. All girls who qualified for the Federal Vaccines for Children program were eligible to receive the vaccine free of charge: Medicaid, CHIPs, and uninsured or those with insurance that won’t pay for vaccines. The Texas Legislature had previously delegated unconditional authority to mandate new vaccines to the Department of State Health Services, which is under Governor Perry and the Executive Branch.

Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann showed her profound ignorance about the germ theory and modern medicine in general, and the Human Papilloma vaccine, Gardasil, in particular. She seems ignorant of the fact that newborns (little, innocent newborns) receive a shot against the STD, Hepatitis B, on the first or second day of their lives, before they go home from the hospital. They get 2 more of the shots by the time they are 6 months old. And (little, innocent) 12 year old boys and girls get a (measles/mumps/rubella) MMR and a tetanus and diphtheria booster (Td)  about the same time. Tetanus, or “lock jaw” is not a communicable disease.

in her zeal to attack Governor Rick Perry, Bachmann did even worse in her post-debate interview with Greta Van Sustern on Fox News. Her emotional, anti-vaccine remarks should be an embarrassment to her.

She told Greta about a conversation with a crying mom who came up to her after the debate, saying that the woman’s daughter suffered from “mental retardation” after receiving the vaccine. “Mental retardation” would not be diagnosed at 9-12 years old. In fact, in over 10 years more than 50 million doses of Gardasil have been given in the United States. There has been more than the usual scrutiny and surveillance for adverse effects. The Center for Disease Control, the FDA and the Institute of Medicine have all reached the conclusion that even with this heightened awareness and concern, there have been no adverse effects from this vaccine other than fainting and allergic reactions that can happen with any medical procedure or treatment.

At the time, Gardasil had over 5 years of history of study in boys and girls, with an official “Four Year Follow Up” article published in the British Medical Journal. To learn more, please see “A Dose of Reason.”

Space station commander remembers 9/11 | RedState

Frank Culbertson Captain, USN Retired, the commander of Expedition 3 on the International Space Station, was the only American not on Earth at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

As soon as Culbertson learned of the attacks, he began documenting the event in photographs because the station was flying over the New York City area. From his unique vantage point in space, he recorded his thoughts of the world changing beneath him.

via Space station commander remembers 9/11 | RedState.

Marriage just for benefits?

(The title was “Marriage < (is less than) Benefits; States < Feds; Legislatures < Courts; Law = Nothing” It seemed good at the time.)

The 9th Federal Court of Appeals (that Court that is overturned more often than any of the other Federal Appeals Courts) claims that opposite sex couples will marry solely in order to qualify for health insurance. If marriage is something of so little worth,  why not set up a matchmaking service, allowing lesbians and gays to marry willing opposite sex people to “marry” for the benefits?

The Federal Courts are acting as though the Constitution gives them the power to make all the important decisions and the Legislatures only get to decide inconsequential issues.  Why have States and Legislatures – or that Bill of Rights – at all?

The 9th affirmed a lower Federal court’s injunction against a 2009 law of the State of Arizona which defined “dependent” as spouses, minor children and children in college as far as qualification for State Employee health insurance benefits. The State claims they were trying to save money and pointed out that the law did not discriminate against same-sex couples and their children, since it affected all (non-married) “domestic partners,”  including cohabiting opposite sex couples and their children.

Former Governor Janet Napolitano had arbitrarily changed the regulations by an Executive Order to cover all “domestic partnerships” on her way out of Arizona to work in the Obama administration. The State Legislature passed a bill signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer to define “dependent.”

The first point made in the Court’s ruling was that homosexuals are an “unpopular group,” so any law regarding them can be reviewed under a lower standard:  “We do not need to decide whether heightened scrutiny might be required.” So, this Court has declared that homosexuals are more equal than the rest of us, because the court has deemed them “unpopular.” They get what they want when they want it, simply by crying discrimination, which opposite sex couples can never, ever do:

The court said, however, that the cutoff had a discriminatory impact because only opposite-sex couples could restore their benefits by getting married. The ruling provides health coverage only to the domestic partners of gay and lesbian couples – the sole plaintiffs in the suit – an impact that Benson said promotes inequality.  (Read more: at SFGate.com)

The Court deems marriage of so little value that people who have made the decision to live together without marriage would suddenly change their minds for health insurance benefits.

Well. In my opinion, where you live is much less important than the covenant of marriage. There are States where it is legal for same-sex couples to marry: let the same-sex couples move to New York or Massachusetts. That way, they would underscore how important they find marriage, for its own sake, and the Courts could avoid trampling the sovereign rights of the States.

Yellow dogs, splitting hairs and being human

Memories in the hearts and minds of others are what we leave behind. Even more than our DNA, that’s what makes us human. We are the only species having this conversation, after all!

More than I’ve noticed in the past, this nascent Presidential election is bringing out emotions, old rivalries, and pitting Conservative against Conservative as we perfect our skill of hair-splitting. We’re covering life, liberty and pursuit of happiness like the founders and many since, and reviewing changes in local politics as well as basic philosophies and world visions. (Not New World Order, how you see the world.)

And, Lord knows, we Conservatives can split hairs finer than Baptists.

Nevertheless, I think all this fussin’ is a good thing as long as we stop short of “eating our own. ” We’re proving, once again, that we are not merely reactionaries or like those old “yellow dog” Democrats or Republicans (meaning we’d vote for an old yellow dog before we’d vote for the other Party). We have arrived – and are arriving – at our opinions through thought and research. (Don’t you love the Internet?)  No one can watch us nit-pick (and cherry-pick quotes) and accuse us of blindly following some leader. Oh, no. Not us!

However new and raucous our debates have become, some of us have been reminiscing about the people who influenced our views on politics, even as we continue to engage in political arguments.   I’ve gotten to “know” some pretty impressive grandma’s and parents and been able to share my own memories of my family.*

We’re reminding one another of why Texas went from a Democrat State to a Republican State. And we still learn lessons from the people who lived that conversion before us.

What a great debate and a blessing to live in these times!

===============

*My mother passed away in August, 2006. I still miss her. Here’s an introduction in the form of the note I wrote on what would have been her 70th birthday:

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007 would have been my mother’s 70th birthday. Helen Margaret Jernigan Burnett, “Mama,” died from complications of thymic carcinoma last August.

Mama is probably the source of my addiction to arguing and politics. Some people might think it comes from being the oldest daughter of a Baptist preacher, but I believe it comes from being the daughter of a certain Baptist preacher’s wife.

Mama was a teetotaler, prolife, conservative who believed in equal opportunity for anyone who would do the work, but also worked to help others. She and Daddy stopped to “early vote” on the way to see the chest surgeon – just in case her surgery was scheduled before the election a few weeks away. She was semi-famous in her hometown as the food demonstration lady at the local Wal-Mart, the one who handed out samples and root beer floats. She won awards at work for leading fund raising and selling at the store, and ran the early morning Senior Citizens Bingo. Most of all, she was the best “Grandmama” in the world.

As Daddy pushed her wheelchair into the hospital for what turned out to be her last admission, she suddenly looked up at the people around her and said, “I have the best insurance in the world: Jesus Christ!”

It turned out that she was suffering a series of strokes that would steal her ability to do even basic self-care and make her delirious most of the time. Daddy, my sister or I took turns to be with her most of the time; feeding her, helping with her baths and trying to help her control her pain. I wasn’t always patient and I’m afraid that I preached a few of the lessons I learned from her, back at her. But I was better at doing what I could for her than I would have ever thought.

In spite of what I knew of her condition and prognosis, Mama’s death was totally unexpected. Evidently, she had her final stroke while in the MRI, as I sat at the head of the machine, singing to her and trying to keep her (both of us) calm.

I’ve often heard people say that they wouldn’t want to be a burden to their children. Needing someone else to feed us and wipe our chin when we can’t hold the spoon, much less assist us in performing much more intimate acts of hygiene, seems to be the worst thing we can imagine.

I’ve never had a good answer for patients or family members when they express this fear to me. Now, I know that the worst thing that I can imagine is living the rest of my life without having fed Mama, washed her, and rubbed her back on that last day.

The faith that she and Daddy surrounded me with as a child makes me sure that Mama is in heaven. But it’s the memories of caring for her those last few days that let me live here on earth knowing that I loved her as best I could when I could. Mama’s last lesson was that we owe it to our loved ones to allow them to care for us, for their sakes.

No Time For A Doctor’s Visit? These Apps Can Help | Fox Business

I’m not sure about this “app”

It’s not always feasible to make it to the doctor’s office for every cough and sniffle. Plus heading straight to your doctor can become costly. Here’s a look at apps that will help you maintain your health.

via No Time For A Doctor’s Visit? These Apps Can Help | Fox Business.

Hat tip to Politico’s @benpolitico

Enough (or Leaving Sarahtology) | RedState

Erick Erickson is an astute observer. Remember, we’re not talking about Governor Palin, we’re talking about her fans.

For the longest time I wanted Sarah Palin to run.

Unfortunately, as I found out and as others are starting to find out, moving on from Sarah Palin is like leaving Scientology.

To not bow at the throne of Sarah you get disowned. You get attacked. You have people drum up stories attacking your credibility. “Oh, Perry announced at his event, he must be bought and paid for,” etc. Ironically, some of the very people going after this site’s and my credibility — claiming we’re pressured to do things by higher ups at Eagle Publishing — are people who were on payrolls advocating for clients while refusing to disclose potential conflicts among other things. To add comedy to irony, it seems more and more apparent that some of those who attacked this site and me for holding editorial positions based on what our corporate parent dictates (a lie designed to undermine our lack of sufficiently pro Palin bona fides among other things) are themselves engaging in projection because it is they, not RedState nor me, who must tread carefully in who they attack because their livelihoods depend on it. It’s always the kooks who project their sins on others.

via Enough | RedState.

I don’t get many comments on this blog, but when there are rants, it’s been from Governor Palin”s supporters complaining about my reporting on or – worse yet – defense of Governor Perry’s record. Some of the other Boards and Forums are worse.

I’ll be glad to see Governor Palin on the November 2012 ballot, but I’m supporting Governor Perry in the Primary for his job record and pro-life fights in Texas. Deciding on my own Governor shouldn’t bother anyone except the inept Incumbent.

Spokesman: Perry plans to attend GOP debate

Pray for Rain. 1000 homes lost in this go-around.

“I don’t know,” Perry said when asked by CBS if he will participate in the GOP debate, set for Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.

“That’s a fluid situation at the moment, so again I go back to we’re going to be taking care of the folks here,” the governor continued to say on CBS. “I got a great team of people to work with. That’s one of the things I’ve been blessed with for 10 years.”

via Spokesman: Perry plans to attend GOP debate.

Robert P. George: Serious GOP Debate

Set your video recorder to CNN at 3 PM EST on Monday, September 5 in order to watch Senator Jim DeMint, Congressman Steve King, and philosopher and bioethicist Robert P. George question the  Republican candidates for President.  The forum will not be a debate, but a series of individual interviews at the Palmetto Freedom Forum in South Carolina.

Professor George has been called the smartest man in the US and I’ve blogged about him and quoted him many times (best, here) at LifeEthics.org.  As an admitted groupie of men like Professor George and Dr. Leon Kass (sorry guys), the Palmetto forum would be my dream forum!

“I think people are aware that things are not right,” George says. “They are not technical problems to be solved by choosing the best technocrat. . . . People have a sense that the problems run deeper than that, that they have to do, in a very significant measure, with a loss of fidelity over the years, a falling away from our own principles. . . . They are looking for a conversation that goes deeper.”

via A Serious GOP Debate – Robert Costa – National Review Online.

Abortionists ordered to follow disputed ‘informed consent’ law

The court found constitutional the state’s decision to demand abortionists tell patients three things:

That the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;

That [the patient] has an existing relationship with that unborn human being and that the relationship enjoys protection under the United States Constitution and under the laws of South Dakota;

That by having an abortion, her existing relationship and her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated.

via Abortionists ordered to follow disputed ‘informed consent’ law.

Herald-Zeitung (Gesundheit!) and the AP: Dumb and Dumber

I was shocked to see that this morning’s  printed version of my own hometown paper, the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, featured a front-page article, “Texas to appeal judge’s ruling,” stating that Texas’ ultrasound law would force women to “undergo an invasive vaginal ultrasound.” This is a lie. Perhaps the problem is that the author only quoted  a lawyer for the New York firm that sued the State of Texas.

(The piece isn’t on the website, but it’s a reprint of the article by April Castro, available at the Houston Chronicle .)

As Federal Judge Sam Sparks wrote when denying the plaintiff’s claim that the law did not provide equal protection under the law because it only applied to women, “This legitimate interest obviously justifies “singling out” abortion providers and the patients thereof, because they pose a serious potential risk to “the life of the fetus that may become a child.”’

The State of Texas regulates physicians, not patients and HB 15 is a set of conditions that a physician must meet before performing abortions. The Supreme Court has acknowledged (along with other thinking human beings) that States (We the People, the rest of us) have a legitimate interest in promoting the life and health of both the woman and her unborn child and in protecting them from fraud and coercion. Nothing in the wording of the law would force anyone to undergo an “invasive vaginal ultrasound.”

Regardless of the oft-repeated claim that an ultrasound is not medically necessary, it is standard of care prior to all abortions. The website of one of the plaintiffs, Alan Braid, MD’s Reproductive Services of San Antonio, informs potential patients that an ultrasound is included in the abortion fee  and “to determine the length of your pregnancy.” It is also standard of care to use the Ultrasound to guide instruments being introduced into the vagina and uterus.

Sparks objected to the mandate that physicians must describe any cardiac activity or development of limbs and internal organs. This is medical information that belongs to the woman, not ideology.

Sparks also claimed that the State intends to “brand” women by having them sign an informed consent paper and the inclusion of that paper in what he called “semi-private, at best” medical records. He is afraid that the record might be used in the future in lawsuits against the doctor, ignoring the fact that this would only happen if the woman who owns the medical information is the one suing the doctor.

(Edited for better sentences, 10:15 AM. BBN)

Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Statement by Gov. Rick Perry on Injunction of Sonogram Law

Gov. Rick Perry today issued the following statement on U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks’ injunction against Texas’ recently-passed sonogram legislation:

“Every life lost to abortion is a tragedy and today’s ruling is a great disappointment to all Texans who stand in defense of life. This important sonogram legislation ensures that every Texas woman seeking an abortion has all the facts about the life she is carrying, and understands the devastating impact of such a life-changing decision. I have full confidence in Attorney General Abbott’s efforts to appeal this decision as he defends the laws enacted by the Texas Legislature.”

via Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Statement by Gov. Rick Perry on Injunction of Sonogram Law.

Critique of Judge Sam Sparks’ Opinion on Texas Ultrasound Law (part 2)

See Part 1, here
Media reports say that due to the injunction by Federal Judge Sam Sparks, the Texas Ultrasound law will not go into effect at all until a higher court rules on it. However, the Judge does note that there is a severability clause and that his injunction is narrow. I’m waiting to see opinions from lawyers as to whether abortionists will be held to parts of the law that are not specifically under injunction.

In the meantime, I wonder how many women will meet the abortionist before they are gowned and sedated for the procedure and how many will insist on seeing their sonograms?

In the second half of the Opinion by Judge Sam Sparks, the Judge outlines the specific complaints brought against the new law, HB 15, (text of the law, here ) . Most of those complaints are dismissed, even as the Judge continues to call the new law “unwise” and ultimately imposes an injunction against enforcement.

Sparks disagrees with the Plaintiffs, the Center for Reproductive Rights out of New York, that the definitions of “medical emergency,”  “sonogram,”  “in a quality consistent with current medical practice,” and “in a manner understandable to a layperson” are unconstitutionally vague.  He also disagrees with the Plaintiffs on whether or not “visit” and “abortion-related services” are unclear to most people.

The major complaints upheld by the judge appear to be that the law doesn’t allow for multiple-physician practices or for a switch if the original doctor who informed the woman about her ultrasound cannot, “through some unforeseen circumstances,” perform the abortion, requires a woman to sign an informed consent acknowledgement, and   forces the physician to “advance an ideological agenda.”  Sparks also does not like the word “soley,” for reasons that I don’t understand.

It is true that one purpose of the law was to ensure that women were given informed consent by the physician who was to perform the abortion, “in a private and confidential setting.” Most abortionists had been satisfying the 24 hour waiting period and informed consent the same way that Dr. Alan Braid’s Reproductive Services of San Antonio,  had:  over the phone  or by referring the woman to the information on the Internet.

However, it doesn’t appear that Sparks overturned these requirements, since the injunction overturns the objection to the requirement that women receive private and confidential informed consent and the exception for those who live more than 100 miles from the abortion clinic. The opinion only finds fault with the lack of accommodations for “unplanned substitutions.”

The judge makes a surprising statement about the requirement that a copy of the informed consent be inserted in the medical record of the woman:

Compounding this problem is newly-added section 171.0121, which requires both that a copy of the above certification be placed in the pregnant woman’s medical records (presumably permanently), and that the facility that performs the abortion retain a copy for at least seven years.See H.B. 15, Sec. 3 (adding TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 171.0121). Given the nature of the certification and the Act’s retention requirements, it is difficult to avoid the troubling conclusion that the Texas Legislature either wants to permanently brand women who choose to get abortions, or views these certifications as potential evidence to be used against physicians and women.

Sparks says that the medical record is “semi-private,” and is concerned that it might someday be subpoenaed for use in a court case. The only time that these would be seen in Court is if the woman herself sues the doctor.

Sparks also engages in a bit of ideological speech of his own about the requirement for the abortionist to describe  “the presence of cardiac activity,” and “the presence of external members and internal organs.”

“ The Court does not think the disclosures required by the Act are particularly relevant to any compelling government  interest, but whatever relevance they may have is greatly diminished by the disclosures already required under Texas law, which are more directly pertinent to those interests.”

and, from page 50:

The net result of these provisions is: (1) a physician is required to say things and take expressive actions with which the physician may not ideologically agree, and which the physician may feel are medically unnecessary; (2) the pregnant woman must not only passively receive this potentially unwanted speech and expression, but must also actively participate—in the best case by simply signing an election form, and in the worst case by disclosing in writing extremely personal, medically irrelevant facts; and (3) the entire experience must be memorialized in records that are,at best, semi-private. In 7 the absence of a sufficiently weighty government interest, and a sufficiently narrow statute advancing that interest, neither of which have been argued by Defendants, the Constitution does not permit such compulsion.

Edit to add this question: How can a doctor “not ideologically agree” with the facts visible on the sonogram when describing heart or limbs?

In my opinion, the worst part of the ruling is Spark’s legal-speak on “compelling’ and his insistence on bringing back the ever-moving line of “viability:”

Second, while Casey refers to the government’s interest in potential life as “important,” “substantial,” and “legitimate,” it stops short of characterizing it as “compelling.” Indeed, one of the holdings of Roe v. Wade, and one this Court does not interpret Casey as having overruled, was that “[w]ith respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘compelling’ point is at viability.”

Tell me, Judge Sparks, just what is “viability?” 24 weeks, 20 or 18 weeks?

link to Part 1 and “sticky” added September 5, 2011 12:19 PM BBN

Doing the work skilled providers won’t

Will someone tell me why it is logical for Federal Judge Sam Sparks to assume that “less-skilled providers”  will be willing to meet the “onerous requirements” that more-skilled providers won’t?

” The Court has grave doubts about the wisdom of the Act, but that is no legal basis for invalidating it. The Act’s onerous requirements will surely dissuade or prevent many competent doctors from performing abortions, making it significantly more difficult for pregnant women to obtain abortions. Forcing pregnant women to receive medical treatment from less-skilled providers certainly seems to be at odds with ‘protecting the physical and psychological health and well-being of pregnant women,’ one of the Act’s stated purposes.”

Critique of Judge Sam Sparks’ Texas Ultrasound Opinion

I’m a doctor, not a lawyer, so I may not understand all of the words and references in the opinion, but I’m shocked that any self-respecting Federal Judge would allow such a frankly biased opinion out of his office. Perhaps Sparks doesn’t mind burning his chances of ever being appointed to another Court, and is quite happy with his life time appointment in the Federal Court at Austin.

I’m halfway through the ruling and thought I’d post some thoughts before these comments got too long.

Sparks decided that it’s not really important for the Plaintiffs to be someone actually harmed by the Law in order to have standing in his Court. He approved the class action suit filed by a New York State corporation, The Center for Reproductive Rights, who filed a class action suit on behalf of all the abortionists in Texas, supported by affidavits from three abortionists:

1. 1. Alan Braid, MD is the only one  of the three who lives and works in Texas. He owns a privately owned abortion clinic in San Antonio, Reproductive Services, S.A. http://www.reproductiveservicessa.com/
2. 2. David A. Grimes, MD, inventor of the partial birth abortion and instructor in “family planning and OBGyn at the University of North Carolina. In 1995, Grimes testified in favor of forcing residency programs and residents to perform and  train doctors in abortion http://www.nchla.org/issues.asp?ID=28  “Making abortion training a routine part of any residency…will put abortion back in the mainstream of medicine.”
3. 3.  Anne D. Lyerly, MD, from the University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill, who was once the chair of the ethics committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She testified *against* conscience rights before the Bush President’s Bioethics Council in 2006.

If R. v. W. isn’t found to be gross misconduct, this ruling should be. Sparks can’t resist a revealing his prejudice and mocking the legislature.

Citing Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 846 (1992), a US Supreme Court ruling on abortion limitations and Equal Protection, Sparks not only has to admit that the Texas law is legitimate under prior law and Court rulings, but that:

“This legitimate interest obviously justifies “singling out” abortion providers and the patients thereof, because they pose a serious potential risk to “the life of the fetus that may become a child.”’

However, he goes on to admit his prior bias:

“The Court has grave doubts about the wisdom of the Act, but that is no legal basis for invalidating it. The Act’s onerous requirements will surely dissuade or prevent many competent doctors from performing abortions, making it significantly more difficult for pregnant women to

obtain abortions. Forcing pregnant women to receive medical treatment from less-skilled providers certainly seems to be at odds with “protecting the physical and psychological health and well-being of pregnant women,” one of the Act’s stated purposes. H.B. 15, Sec. 12(1). However, rational basis review requires this Court to accept even tenuous rationales for the advancement of a legitimate government interest.

In short, if the Texas Legislature wishes to prioritize an ideological agenda (2) over the health and safety of women, the Equal Protection Clause does not prevent it from doing so under these circumstances. Accordingly, the Court must reject Plaintiffs’ Equal Protection arguments. (p. 20/55)

That footnote (2) ?

“2 It is ironic that many of the same people who zealously defend the state’s righteous duty to become intimately involved in a woman’s decision to get an abortion are also positively scandalized at the government’s gross overreaching in the area of health care.”

S

“(It) is difficult to avoid the troubling conclusion the Texas Legislature either wants to permanently brand women who choose to get abortions, or views these certifications as potential evidence to be used against physicians and women,” Sparks wrote.

Federal Judge Sparks places injunction on Texas Ultrasound Bill

The news reports so far only contain very brief statements which appear to be from the same press release. More as soon as I can find the actual ruling.

However, all the reports tell us that Judge Sparks said Texas ultrasound bill will ” “permanently brand women who choose to get an abortion.” Aren’t medical records private? How histrionic can this judge be? The woman’s statement will be part of her medical record. No one will see it except the abortionist.

He also said something to the effect that the doctor’s “First amendment rights” are infringed by State mandated informed consent. Please tell that to all of the doctors who have followed a strict Texas law on informed consent for hysterectomies, sterilization, radiation therapy and electric shock therapy.

It doesn’t look as though the judge struck down the part that requires a doctor to perform the informed consent himself, 24 hours before the procedure. Good. By requiring the same standard of informed consent that most of us would expect from our heart doc before a catheterization or by-pass, the law will be enough to make elective abortions prohibitively expensive for the mills to make any profit.

Politics at Texas Medical Board

Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical and Dental Association believes that the Texas Medical Board’s review and limitations on adult stem cell treatments is politically motivated.

It does appear that the Board is responding to politics.

“Meanwhile, Stevens believes criticism of Governor Perry’s recent adult stem cell procedure is politically motivated. (Listen to audio report)

The Republican presidential candidate had back surgery July 1, where his own stem cells were removed and injected back into his body. But shortly after, the Associated Press published a story in which several doctors criticized the decision as too “experimental” and “risky.” But Stevens believes those doctors are playing more politics than they are science. He points out that Perry consulted with his orthopedist, Dr. Stanley Jones, who is a well-respected physician.”

The Board heard the proposal on Friday, August 26. The Board would impose Federal regulations and a formal ethics board oversight for “off label” or experimental use of medications or treatments.

We doctors use our judgement at times to treat our patients using medications, procedures and equipment in ways that are considered “off label.” (For instance, the “morning after pill” therapies were at first unofficial use of oral contraceptives, long before Plan B was on the market.)

The Board should adjust their criteria to whether or not the patient gave full, proper informed consent obtained and is the treatment inherently ethical in likely outcome and goal?

55% Say Abortion Morally Wrong Most of the Time – Rasmussen Reports™

Slightly more voters continue to classify themselves as pro-choice rather than pro-life when it comes to abortion, but a majority still believes it is morally wrong.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters say, generally speaking, on the issue of abortion, they consider themselves pro-choice. Forty-three percent (43%) describe themselves as pro-life. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Pro-choice voters have slightly outnumbered pro-lifers in surveys for several years.

Still, 55% believe abortion is morally wrong most of the time, a finding that shows little change since April 2007. Thirty percent (30%) think abortion is morally acceptable in the majority of cases, while 15% are undecided.

via 55% Say Abortion Morally Wrong Most of the Time – Rasmussen Reports™.

Ted Cruz praised in “Fed Up!” by Governor Rick Perry

I’m about halfway through the book, Fed Up! by Governor Rick Perry and found these notes about the service of former Solicitor General Ted Cruz, who is running for Senator from the State of Texas.

On the death penalty for child rapists:

Texas supported Louisiana. Our able solicitor general Ted Cruz argued the case on behalf of Texas and eight other states, defending the authority of democratically elected legislatures to determine the appropriate punishment for the very worst rapists. (p. 100). Kindle Edition.

On the World Court mandate that Texas review cases of illegal aliens:

Somewhat shockingly, to me at least, President Bush then issued a memorandum attempting to order Texas and other states to review convictions of those not apprised of their consular rights. The case proceeded to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Solicitor General Cruz again argued our case. Neither I nor my friend Texas attorney general Greg Abbott believed that the United States should be forced to obey the World Court or that the President had authority to order the state courts to do so. In a 6–3 opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court agreed, and Medellin was executed on August 5, 2008.

(p 101 location 1649)

Perry, Rick; foreward by Newt Gingrich (2010-11-15). Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington. Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Murder and medical ethics – Viewpoint

What do we risk when we give serious consideration to the argument that some humans may not be human enough to be protected by society?

From a Ph.D. student:

Perhaps neither of these situations is particularly plausible. But more plausible, I think, is a third: imagine again that abortion is murder and that my first student avoids pregnancy in medical school. She becomes an obstetrician and spends a career delivering healthy babies to happy parents. Only intermittently do those parents ask her, instead, to abort their children. When they ask this of her, she first remembers the principles that she learned as a child — but she then remembers the many arguments that I taught her. She remembers that she is a doctor, a woman of the world, and that whatever seems to be black and white is always, in the end, many shades of gray. Surely, she thinks, abortion cannot be as bad as they say: it is distasteful, certainly, but hardly evil. It is a thing to be done and forgotten.

And so she kills. Not often, and not gladly. But she kills nonetheless. And the blood that spills is, at least partly, on my hands.

This, then, is my fear. When I voiced it to a fellow graduate student, he reassured me that our students do not listen to us anyway. Which may well be true. But it is better not to take the chance if the stakes are as high as we take them to be — if, for example, abortion really is murder. Consider a parallel case: we teach our children, before we send them off to college, that murder is wrong. We would never allow them to take, much less demand that they take, a course that would seriously question this — that would, so to speak, look at both sides of the murder debate. What would be the point? Even if said course did not manipulate them into the pro-death camp, presenting that camp as though it were a legitimate option — as though intelligent and responsible students sometimes concluded that murder is permissible, or even a human right — could only serve to weaken their resolve: if the best philosophers cannot agree that murder is wrong, they might think in a moment of rage, who can blame them for murdering?

via Murder and medical ethics – Viewpoint – The Observer – University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College.