Dear Reproductive Rights Supporters

Democrats.com | November 1, 2002 | Kim Gandy - NOW

[stocksthatgoup]

November 1, 2002

Dear Reproductive Rights Supporter,

In a matter of days, we could lose the only thing that stands between George W. Bush and his determination to overturn the right to safe, legal abortion - the United States Senate. Our rights are threatened as they haven't been for thirty years, and our only hope is to elect United States Senators who will stand with us. Our opposition is on the attack, some of our best friends are in trouble, and the time to act is now. Already we have lost a stalwart champion, Sen. Paul Wellstone, and this devastating loss makes it even more important that we win every other race by a decisive margin.

NOW is using every resource of our unparalleled grassroots network of volunteers to mobilize voters who favor reproductive rights. There are four key races, each too close too call, where a handful of votes could make all the difference. We have targeted those states for special efforts, but we need your help for the last Get Out the Vote push. Take a minute to respond NOW - it could make all the difference.

http://democrats.com/now

Please send the most generous contribution you can to support our GOTV campaigns in Missouri, New Hampshire and Colorado, where rabid enemies of reproductive rights are running against strong champions, people we count on when the going gets tough. And, in light of recent events, we also need your help for our campaign in Minnesota, where we need to ensure that, even though there is no one who can fill Paul Wellstone's shoes, Walter Mondale carries on his energetic support for women's rights.

In each of these states and many others, NOW activists have been working hard and long. We're in the home stretch now and need that infusion of energy that can carry us over the election day finish line. Please make a contribution today so we can speed that help to the targeted areas right away. There's no time to lose.

http://democrats.com/now

Anti-abortion leaders, described by the Washington Post as "giddy" at the prospect of reclaiming the Senate, and thus controlling both the legislative and executive branches, are preparing to ram through every crazy piece of legislation and every right wing extremist judicial nomination George Bush and John Ashcroft can come up with, starting November 6. And it's not just abortion rights at stake: It's Social Security reform, disability rights, Title IX, funding for family planning, programs to prevent violence against women, job training and childcare for working parents - in short, everything you and I care about.

This is a fight we cannot afford to lose. NOW volunteers are making phone calls, going door to door and organizing on campuses to identify and turn out every progressive voter. But with a little extra financial support in these final days we can double and triple this organizing power. Please give as generously as you can. We'll put your gift to work immediately. You can make a difference.

http://democrats.com/now

Please give us your support in these final hours, so we can work to ensure that that no progressive voter sits home on election day. Your help can make a real difference. I look forward to hearing from you today.

Sincerely,

Kim A. Gandy President National Organization for Women

[stocksthatgoup]

The NOW organization makes it clear they are nothing but a democratic party division.

[Eala]

safe, legal abortion

Since when has abortion been "safe"?

[BonnieJ]

I hate their terminology..."reproductive rights", "the right to choose", "pro-choice", etc. Rarely do they have the courage or honesty to just say "abortion".

[gcruse]

Uh oh. That's gonna furrow some brows.

[anniegetyourgun]

Notice she doesn't even use the word "rare" when speaking of abortion. Why, that would hurt the blood industry of abortion. Ms. Gandy drips the stuff from her own fingers, which is why her friends say, "you go, ghoul...."

[Poser]

"Rarely do they have the courage or honesty to just say "abortion"."

Right you are. The anti-abortion crew has won the arguement. The pro-abortion crew can't even utter the word.

[gcruse]

Right you are. The anti-abortion crew has won
the arguement. The pro-abortion crew can't even utter the word.

It's a little more complicated than that.  In the beginning, there
was 'abortion.'  Then came 'anti-abortion.'  But rather
than be seen as anti-something, the anti-abortion crowd
wanted to be pro-something, so they euphemized anti-abortion
into prolife.  The pro-abortion crowd, seeing the
chance to escape the negative aspect of abortion,
switched to pro-choice in emphasis of a woman's
right to choose.  And there it remains.  If anything was
won, it was Roe v Wade.

[Cicero]

Dear Reproductive Rights Supporter

Translation: Dear Baby Killer

[Navy Patriot]

Since when has abortion been "safe"?

Yeah, safe for who, the mother, or the child?

They probably mean it is safe for the doctor.

[Lost Highway]

Reproductive Rights

You have the right to reproduce, just not the right to kill the results of your reproduction.

we could lose the only thing that stands between George W. Bush and his determination to overturn the right to safe, legal abortion

Actually no such thing will happen. What will happen is that the legality of abortion will return to the individual states where it belongs.

[toenail]

For those who'd like concrete evidence that "safe, legal abortion" is a damnable lie, please check out:

And Kevin Sherlock's Victims of Choice and The Scarlet Survey

The Cover-Up Why U.S. Abortion Mortality Statistics Are Meaningless
  David C. Reardon, Ph.D.On March 1, 1989, Erica Richardson, a 16-year-old Maryland resident, bled to death from a punctured uterus only hours after undergoing an abortion. During the next five months, two adult women, Gladys Estanislao and Debra Gray, also died from abortion complications. They too were residents of Maryland.

Shockingly, none of these three women was even granted that smallest of recognitions--becoming a statistic. The official statistics issued by Maryland public health officials showed that there were no deaths from abortion in 1989. Indeed, Maryland only reported a single abortion-related death for the entire decade of 1980 to 1989.⁽¹⁾

There was actually a fourth maternal death related to a 1989 abortion in Maryland. In this case, Susanne Logan fell into a coma during her abortion and awoke four months later as a quadriplegic, unable to talk. She survived for three years, dying in 1992. Since Susanne's death was not an immediate result of her abortion, it has not been counted in any of the official abortion mortality statistics.⁽²⁾

These are four deaths that occurred in one small state that reported no abortion deaths for 1989. For that same year, the Abortion Surveillance Unit of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported only 12 deaths for the entire country. But, as we will see, the CDC doesn't look very hard.

Covering the Abortionists' Tracks

In the late 1980's, Kevin Sherlock, an investigative reporter who specializes in public document searches, undertook an extensive review of death certificates for women of reproductive age in Los Angeles County. Looking for indications of "therapeutic misadventure," he pulled autopsy reports and was able to find 29 abortion-related deaths in L.A. County alone between 1970 and 1987. Four of these deaths occurred during a one-year period for which the CDC reported zero abortion-related deaths for the entire state of California and only 12 deaths for the whole country.

Using a similar technique, Sherlock eventually documented 30 to 40 percent more abortion-related deaths throughout the country than have been reported in the "official" national statistics published by the CDC. Furthermore, Sherlock accomplished this without any assistance from the CDC, which obstructed his every effort to examine their records. Sherlock admits--and even insists--that with his limited resources and the tendency of abortionists and state health authorities to minimize or obscure the paper trail surrounding abortion-related deaths, he has documented only a fraction of the deaths that are actually occurring as a direct result of abortion.⁽³⁾

The scope of the coverup is hinted at in a memo from Steven C. Joseph, M.D., the Commissioner of Health for New York City, to all of his city's abortion providers. Dated June 5, 1987, the friendly memo simply cautioned against the overuse of general anesthesia, stating: "During the period between 1981 and 1984, there were 30 legal abortion-related deaths in New York City . . . one-third of these (10) were due to general anesthesia, whereas in the rest of the United States less than 10 percent of abortion-related deaths were due to general anesthesia (12/146)."⁽⁴⁾

While not intended for release to the general public, this memo is clear evidence that public health authorities know far more about abortion-related deaths than is being shared in the "official" statistics. For this same time period (1981-1984), New York's top health official had identified 30 deaths in New York City alone, while the CDC's official report shows only 42 abortion-related deaths during this period for the entire nation.

In addition, the memo also suggests that the Commissioner of Health had access to unpublished information identifying another 146 abortion-related deaths for that same time period outside of New York. Combined with the 30 deaths in New York City, that is 176 abortion-related deaths in all--419 percent higher than was reported in the official CDC numbers.

Similar admissions of cover-up have been made by other public health authorities.⁽⁵⁾ For example, following the death of Barbara Lee Davis from hemorrhage after a routine first-trimester abortion, the chief of the Illinois Department of Public's Division of Hospitals and Clinics admitted to reporters, "It's unfortunate, but it's happening every day in Chicago, and you're just not hearing about it."⁽⁶⁾ Just one year later, during an investigation of only four Chicago-based abortion clinics, investigative reporters for the Chicago-Sun Times identified twelve abortion-related deaths that had not been reported in the state's official statistics.⁽⁷⁾

How can there be such an extensive cover-up of abortion-related deaths? Prior to legalization, abortion-related deaths were carefully and accurately reported because these deaths resulted from an illegal activity.⁽⁸⁾ But today, abortion is not only legal but is politically protected. Indeed, the CDC's abortion surveillance unit is not only run by abortion advocates, it has regularly employed practicing abortionists! This is like putting consultants for Phillip Morris' cigarette manufacturing division in charge of the CDC's lung cancer surveillance unit. Clearly, the CDC's abortion surveillance unit is more interested in protecting the health of the American abortion industry than in protecting the health of American women.⁽⁹⁾

Furthermore, the cover-up of abortion-related deaths has actually been furthered by the World Health Organization's coding rule number 12 of the International Classification of Diseases. This rule requires that deaths due to medical and surgical treatment must be reported under the complication of the procedure (embolism, for example) and not under the condition for treatment (elective abortion). According to researcher Isabelle Bégin:

In effect, this makes the "abortion" category a "ghost" category under which it is simply impossible to code a death due to abortion. Medical coders have in fact relayed that any attempt to code a death due to abortion under abortion yields a "reject message" from the computer programs provided by the National Center for Health Statistics of Washington D.C., a division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Only a minute number of abortion-related deaths actually qualify to be declared under abortion, i.e. those for which the medical certificate of death categorically and unequivocally gives abortion as the underlying cause of death.⁽¹⁰⁾

Racial Minorities at Risk

One final note. Both the "official" statistics on abortion-related deaths of women and the findings of private investigators have found that non-white women are two to four times more likely to die or suffer serious injury from an abortion than are white women. The best explanation for this discrepancy would appear to be that non-white patients are at greater risk of suffering from negligence, or even hostility, that is rooted in racial bias. This is because many abortion providers believe that abortion is essential for "suppressing poverty, crime, and other problems of society."⁽¹¹⁾

In an unguarded moment, Dr. Edward Allred, owner of the largest chain of abortion clinics in California, made his racist attitudes frighteningly clear:

Population control is too important to be stopped by some right-wing pro-life types. Take the new influx of Hispanic immigrants. Their lack of respect for democracy and social order is frightening. I hope I can do something to stem that tide; I'd set up a clinic in Mexico for free if I could . . . The survival of our society could be at stake . . . When a sullen black woman of 17 or 18 can decide to have a baby and get welfare and food stamps and become a burden to all of us it's time to stop.⁽¹²⁾

Four years after Allred made these comments, Patricia Chacón, a sixteen-year-old Hispanic girl, and Mary Peña, a 43-year-old married Hispanic woman, both bled to death after having abortions performed by Allred. The autopsy reports do not disclose whether either woman was "sullen."⁽¹³⁾

Other known deaths at Allred-owned clinics are those of Deanna Bell, a 13-year-old black girl; Josefina García, a 37-year-old Filipino woman; Laniece Dorsey, a 17-year-old black girl; and Joyce Orenzio, a 32-year-old Hawaiian woman.⁽¹⁴⁾ Clearly, Dr. Allred has contributed more than his share to suppressing the population of minority women and their children.

---

Originally published in The Post-Abortion Review, 8(2), April-June 2000.  Copyright 2000, Elliot Institute.
See also:

•  Abortion Four Times Deadlier Than Childbirth
•   Informed Consent Booklets Hide True Risks of Abortion
•  Two Senseless Deaths: The Long Road to Recovery
•  Abortionists Are Not Held Accountable for Mistakes

Notes:

1. Kevin Sherlock, Victims of Choice, (Akron, OH: Brennyman Books, 1996) 134-135.

2. James A. Miller, "'Safe and Legal'--Back in New York and Maryland," HLI Reports, 11(2):8-9, Feb, 1993.

3. Sherlock, Victims of Choice, 115-117.

4. Sherlock, Victims of Choice, 165-167.

5. For a more complete discussion with additional examples, see Reardon, Aborted Women Silent No More, 109-113, 282-293.

6. Ann Saltenberger, Every Woman Has a Right to Know the Dangers of Legal Abortion (Glassboro, NJ: Air-Plus Enterprises, 1982, 27.

7. Pamela Zekman and Pamela Warrick, "The Abortion Profiteers," Chicago Sun-Times, special reprint 3 December 1978 (original publication 12 November, 1978)

8. Reardon, 282-293.

9. For a more extensive review of CDC complicity, negligence, and conflicts of interest, see Mark Crutcher, Lime 5, (Denton, TX: Life Dynamics, 1996), 135-170.

10. Isabelle Bégin, "World-wide Abortion Statistics Scam Exposed," Reality, Oct. 1999.

11. See also the interview with abortionist Edward Allred in the film A Matter of Choice (New Liberty Pictures)

12. "Doctor's Abortion Business Is Lucrative", San Diego Union, Oct. 12,, 1980 B1:1.

13. Sherlock, 13-14.

14. Sherlock, 172.
 

[Blood of Tyrants]

It's difficult to focus the national attention on preserving life while the national attention is focused on taking lives in Iraq.

There is absolutely no equating the lives of the innocent unborn and Saddam and his henchmen.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Was there ever any doubt?

[jwalsh07]

Reproductive rights?

Now that's rich.

[earonthief]

NOW should be renamed Murders Inc.

[David]

"It's a little more complicated than that. In the beginning, there was 'abortion.' Then came 'anti-abortion.' But rather than be seen as anti-something, the anti-abortion crowd wanted to be pro-something, so they euphemized anti-abortion to prolife. The pro-abortion crowd, seeing the chance to escape the negative aspect of abortion, switched to pro-choice in emphasis of a woman's right to choose."

How about just "murder"?

The scientific impact of the event terminating pregnancy is now much clearer than it was at the time of Roe v. Wade. Does not stop abortion supporters from amending the constitution. Abortion supporters argue that there is a 50% majority in favor of abortion, therefore the Supreme Court decision is correct.

In fact, they might be correct although I doubt it. The politcial way to get the issue ont he table is to propose to amend the constitution to provide that "no person shall be deprivied of life . . . without due process of law except in the case of a child still attached to the umbilical cord". I tend to doubt you could get a majority in favor of such a proposition and failure to get such a majority would support action by the Supreme Court at the point the legal issue comes to the table.

[Michael Barnes]

*sigh*...Reporductive right's? I could see such a name in, say, China where they have population problems. But here? The name is a proposed attempt to circumvent what is really going on, abortion. Just like "Planed Parenthood", which is anything but. This new "mantra" speak makes me ill. Completly deceptive to the last while winking at the nation as a whole naming themselves a "touchy feely" org. Subverting one's responisbility through namesake erradication is sick. If these women who so openly want "choice" cannot find it within them to purchase some damn condems, then do the next best thing, GET YOUR FRIGGEN TUBES TIED! That procedure can be corrected in the future should the tied-one's change their minds later in the future.

Pfft...Choice, Planned, Reproductive..sick f*cking bitches..

[victim soul]

As a proud anti-abortion "extremist" I am delighted to be "described by the Washington Post as 'giddy' at the prospect of reclaiming the Senate, and thus controlling both the legislative and executive branches,

... and I can hardly wait

..."to ram through every crazy piece of legislation and every right wing extremist judicial nomination George Bush and John Ashcroft can come up with, starting November 6!"

[jwalsh07]

I think you'll find that they are switching from "choice" to "reproductive rights" is so they can include cloning et al. 21st Century bs.