Wolf Veto Harmful to Health

Sad woman at the window

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf (D) is receiving national attention for his refusal to allow an expansion of telemedicine in the Commonwealth in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The reason? The Chief Executive—a former clinic escort for Planned Parenthood—vetoed a popular telemedicine bill because it would have banned the telemedicine distribution of dangerous drugs, such as the abortion pill RU-486.

Pennsylvania has been considered one of the “hot spots” for Coronavirus in the country. As a result, there has been a tremendous push to increase the availability of telemedicine, especially in under-served rural areas.

The telemedicine bill, known as Senate Bill 857, passed the Senate and landed in the PA House of Representatives. There, House members inserted an important amendment which would have barred telemedicine services not approved under what’s known as the Food and Drug Administration’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). RU-486 has not been permitted under the REMS standard.

Responding to the public outcry over his veto, the Governor said, “As amended, this bill interferes with women’s health care and the crucial decision-making between patients and their physicians.”

But the truth is, the amendment would have safeguarded women’s health and safety by ensuring that dangerous medication was not dispensed without a physician physically present. RU-486 has a host of harmful side-effects, everything from excessive bleeding to vomiting, nausea, even death.

Two years ago, the abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood made public its plans to spend a whopping $1.5 million to re-elect Wolf, whose radical pro-abortion stance is considered at odds with Pennsylvania’s mainstream. He has routinely vetoed pro-life legislation, including a ban on brutal dismemberment abortions and a bill which would have banned the abortion of preborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome.

With his latest veto of the telemedicine bill, Wolf has cemented his reputation as an unapologetic cheerleader for the pro-abortion cause.

Taking a Deeper Look at PA Abortion Statistics

Sad woman at the window

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

Figures recently released by the Pennsylvania Department of Health show the total number of abortions in Pennsylvania are at an all-time low.

Still, looking deeper at the statistics, certain trends emerge that are of serious concern.

For instance, late-term abortions…abortions performed at 21-23 weeks…rose to 436. Keep in mind that Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf vetoed a bill that would have changed the abortion limit in PA from 24 weeks to 20 weeks gestation to reflect changes in viability. Thanks to medical breakthroughs, doctors and nurses are able to save babies at ever-earlier stages of development. The bill would have also banned the brutal practice of dismemberment abortion, where a baby is torn limb by limb from a mother’s womb.

Meanwhile, the abortion pill RU-486 accounts for an increasing number of abortions in Pennsylvania. These chemical abortions–also known as medical abortions–account for 11,496 of the 30,011 abortions performed in the Commonwealth.

Also of concern is the number of repeat abortions in the Keystone State. Nearly half of the abortions–14,172–were performed on women who had anywhere from one to four or more previous abortions. This demonstrations the disturbing trend of abortions being used as a method of birth control.

Nevertheless, the downward dip in abortions in Pennsylvania is welcomed news. The closure of abortion facilities, advances in ultrasound technology, and the concrete support provided by pro-life pregnancy resource centers have all helped to make this miracle happen.

NY Times Hails Doctor for Group That Sends Dangerous Abortion Drugs by Mail

This morning, I read a long New York Times article about a group that mails chemical abortion drugs all across the world.

Rebecca Gomperts began Women on Web to provide abortions in countries where Telemed abortionsmost preborn babies are protected by the law. NYT hails Gomperts as a heroine for her abortion work, implying that she is saving thousands of desperate women from unsafe abortions.

According to the article: “Almost 40 percent of the world’s population lives in countries, primarily in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Persian Gulf, where abortion is either banned or severely restricted. The World Health Organization estimated in 2008 that 21.6 million unsafe abortions took place that year worldwide, leading to about 47,000 deaths.”

Of course, they fail to mention that those abortions also took the lives of 21.6 million preborn babies.

Now, Gomperts’ motives seem good but they are extremely and dangerously misplaced (I talked about this in a previous blog). She seems to believe that her abortion work will help women and protect them from back-alley abortionists like Kermit Gosnell or desperate do-it-yourself attempts.

But her work and her motives seem quite ironic. First, she fails to acknowledge that an abortion involves two people, one of whom almost always ends up dead; and second, her work strikes me as similar to the unsafe abortions that she says she is trying to protect women from.

Her group mails RU-486 abortion drugs to women and instructs them by email about how to take the drugs. The group also counsels women to hide the abortion so that they won’t get in trouble with the law. No doctor’s visit, no connections to local medical staff  if something goes wrong.

When a woman emails, Gomperts said she tells them, “We cannot judge your situation over a distance, so we advise you to visit your doctor. This is the limitation of the service.”

Gomperts may mean to help women, but she is doing it by selling women a dangerous abortion procedure and then abandoning them to deal with the consequences alone.

Women don’t need more abortions. Our world, at 21.6 million per year, doesn’t need more abortions. I just hope Gomperts will come to realize that and redirect her efforts toward supporting both women and their babies, which is what our world really needs more of.

Sailing Around Pro-Life Laws: The Abortion Boat and the Feds

Abortion proponents are skirting past laws meant to protect women and preborn children.

The latest group to literally sail around abortion laws is the Women on Waves abortion boat. The Dutch-based pro-abortion group sails a boat to countries that do not allow abortions, and performs chemical abortions off of the coast of pro-life nations. The group’s latest target is Morocco.

The Women on Waves boat gives abortions using RU-486, a dangerous and often ineffective drug that suffocates the preborn baby and causes dangerous side effects.

Earlier this year, our own federal government also skipped over state laws limiting funds to abortion providers. In a special October series, Americans United for Life exposes the Obama Administration’s staunch support for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. After six states decided to end taxpayer funding for the abortion provider, the Obama Administration overrode their laws and provided federal grants to make up for the abortion giant’s lost funding.

We entrust our elected officials with the responsibility of enacting laws that protect our rights – the first being our right to life. When groups skirt past these laws, they show their disregard for our government’s laws, our voters, the women who these laws are designed to protect, and most of all our very right to life – from conception to natural death.

Chemical Abortions Are Dangerous, Ineffective

RU-486, a chemically-induced abortion drug, was hailed as a wonder when it first was introduced to the United States.

A woman could have a “safe,” “easy” abortion without any cold metal instruments or “invasive” procedures, proponents said. A woman just takes the drug and – ta da – no more pregnancy.

But research flies in the face of this propaganda. RU-486 actually is a very dangerous, often ineffective drug.

Not the morning after pill, RU-486 is a steroid that blocks the hormone progesterone, which is needed for a pregnancy to continue. The drug starves and suffocates the baby to death over a period of three to four agonizing days. A second drug usually is taken to induce contractions to expel the baby.

RU-486 has serious health risks for the women who take it. Side effects include heavy bleeding, fever, cramping, diarrhea, high blood pressure, increased heart rate, infections, and more.

Sometimes, the drug fails to finish its deadly deed – and the woman must undergo a surgical abortion. When the chemical abortion doesn’t work correctly, the risks also are more serious, including uncontrolled bleeding, infection, and future birth defects.

A recent study in Vietnam found that one in four women had to undergo a surgical abortion after an incomplete RU-486 abortion, according to a recent Contraception article.

The drug also makes it difficult for women and doctors to distinguish between ordinary side effects (heavy bleeding, pain) and signs of a more serious problem such as hemorrhage, ruptured ectopic pregnancy, or infection, according to an article from the Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change.

Yet, the number of abortion centers offering chemical abortions has been steadily increasing.

Planned Parenthood recently issued a national directive that all of its centers offer abortion services by 2013. As a result, some Planned Parenthood centers in Pennsylvania that didn’t do abortions previously now offer these dangerous chemical abortions.

This expansion and promotion of abortion must stop. RU-486 is a dangerous, painful drug that can be seriously injurious or deadly to the woman, as it effectively or ineffectively kills her preborn child.

Father of Abortion Drug Victim Blasts Planned Parenthood

The father of a young woman killed by the abortion drug RU-486 is blasting Planned Parenthood for its role in his daughter’s death. Monty Patterson believes the abortion giant is responsible for the infection that caused Holly Patterson to lose her life. You can read Monty’s heart-breaking testimony at http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/08/father-of-girl-who-died-from-abortion-slams-planned-parenthood/