First in the License to Abort Little Ones series

Does the Planned Parenthood clinic on 7th Street in Louisville have Transfer Agreements? Will it really begin doing abortions in March?

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Deborah Yetter, Louisville Courier Journal | Published 5:06 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2020 | Updated 6:11 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2020

Planned Parenthood now has permission to provide abortions at its clinic in downtown Louisville, making it the second facility in Kentucky to offer the procedure at a time when providers in some states are closing clinics under pressure from anti-abortion laws.

The decision by the administration of Gov. Andy Beshear was hailed by Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky as a victory for women’s health and reproductive rights, saying the decision allows it to provide “a full range of reproductive health care.”

…Planned Parenthood said it plans to begin offering abortions in March.

Unlike EMW, which operates a storefront clinic and is the site of daily sidewalk protests by people opposed to abortion, Planned Parenthood’s clinic is set back off the road with on-site parking surrounded by a privacy fence.

Read more.

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Do governors have the right to overrule legislation in the court system that is pending resolution?

The C-J reported in late September 2018 that Judge Stivers (a Fifth District Court judge) ruled in favor of the abortion clinics, and struck down the “state law requiring Kentucky abortion clinics to have written agreements with an ambulance service and hospital for emergencies… ” His ruling was appealed by Gov. Bevin to the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court. THAT IS WHY the article ALSO states:

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Deborah Yetter, Louisville Courier Journal | Published 4:12 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2018 | Updated 6:49 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2018

The revocation of EMW's license would have made Kentucky the only state without a single abortion provider. Stivers had ordered that EMW could remain open while the legal challenge is pending… (Our emphasis)

What has changed? The TA case has NOT been ruled on by the Sixth Circuit Court. The only new document on PACER that we can find is the Amy Cubbage, Ackerson & Yann, PLLC, motion to withdraw as Counsel for EMW WOMEN’S SURGICAL CENTER, P.S.C., et al., filed 1/30/2020.

Do governors have the right to overrule legislation in the court system that is pending a resolution? And if Daniel Cameron decides to appeal that decision, if unfavorable, to SCOTUS, will Gov. Beshear have any right to grant a license to PP?

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C-J article in 2019 reported on Judge Stiver’s challenge to Gov. Bevin to grant PP a license to abort

Last August the Bevin administration was advised to grant a license to Planned Parenthood, as reported in the C-J.

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Deborah Yetter and David Harten, Louisville Courier Journal | Published 10:18 p.m. ET Aug. 16, 2019 | Updated 4:33 p.m. ET Aug. 17, 2019

…In a notice to the judge filed Friday, Meredith and lawyer M. Stephen Pitt, Bevin's general counsel, told the judge that the state had denied a license to Planned Parenthood and that he has no authority in the matter.

“Respectfully, this Court has no jurisdiction over the state licensing process," the notice said.

The state's denial comes amid an ongoing dispute over whether Kentucky abortion clinics must have transport and transfer agreements with an ambulance and hospital in the event of a medical emergency, as required by a 1998 state law.

Has Kentucky’s Transfer Agreement law been overturned? When? Does Planned Parenthood now have Transfer Agreements? We are keeping our ear to the ground.

For more background on this controversy, see the blog series on then-AG Beshear's Amicus brief on behalf of the abortion clinics, and the TA page on this site.

UPDATE on January 16, 2020

Deadline to add your name was Jan. 14. We still welcome your contribution to help pay for the media space!

Each year at this time we step out on a limb to buy a FULL-PAGE AD in the statewide edition of the Courier-Journal. The reason is to commemorate the Jan. 22, 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that opened the floodgates to abortion in America. The ad features as many pro-lifers’ names as we can get, along with a message and image to provoke thinking about abortion.

Please be part of this important message to Kentucky. We will add your name or family names to the “signature” ad. We request $5 from individuals, couples or families to support the expensive media outreach. Please sign now and pay online or send a check: 134 Breckinridge Lane, Louisville, KY 40207.

The ad will run on Sunday, Jan. 19. We want your JOHN HANCOCK!

By Schu Montgomery, Opinion contributor | 09-13-19 | Courier-Journal OpEd

The abortion distortion has dominated the pages of local newspapers and major TV outlets ever since the U. S. Supreme Court handed down its infamous Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions in 1973.

Even today, there are still “journalists” who erroneously report that abortion is legalized only in the first three months of pregnancy. Yet, despite an eventual nation-wide ban on the grisly Partial Birth Abortion procedure in 2003, a method that killed an estimated 5,000 babies a year, eight states and Washington, D.C. still permit abortion up until birth for any reason (Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and New York).

The Southwestern Women’s Options clinic in Albuquerque, N.M., for instance, known as the Late-Term Abortion Capital of America, kills babies at 37-weeks gestation through poisonous injection. Within days, the unborn child suffers a heart attack. The woman is charged a staggering $17,000 for this third trimester procedure.

Recently, C-J opinion writer Kim Greene distorted the findings of her own Planned Parenthood-commissioned poll, saying it showed support for legalized abortion in Kentucky. That’s simply not the case. Numbers from that poll, as reported in a C-J story published on August 9, 2019, actually shows “18% said they believe all abortions should be illegal – though another 37% said abortion should be allowed only in ‘extreme cases’ such as for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or to save the life of the woman.”

While 98% of abortions are performed in the U. S. for social reasons— not life of the mother or rape and incest— it is indeed a stretch, actually a distortion, for Greene to conclude that Kentuckians favor abortion.

The numbers simply don’t add up. The 18% who favor banning abortion added to the 37% who would only permit abortion in the very rare cases of life of the mother and rape/incest equals 55%. The last time I looked 55% is a majority. Therefore, PP’s very own poll shows a majority of Kentuckians (the 500 Democrats, Republicans, and Independents queried) do, in fact, reject abortion on demand!

But even if the numbers recorded otherwise, which they don’t — morality, objective truth, and irrefutable scientific evidence all point to the urgency to restore the right to life to unborn children.

In Kentucky, there is only one abortion clinic left! If abortions were so popular, why then are we– who love and cherish innocent human life and who believe women deserve better than the “right” to kill preborn children– witnessing the last gasp of a diabolical abortion industry, and the continuing renaissance of crisis pregnancy centers, who offer real and effective pre-natal and postpartum care to women facing unplanned pregnancies.

We laud Kentucky lawmakers and Governor Matt Bevin for fighting for life and passing pro-life measures, while defending them aggressively in the courts (something Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andy Beshear has refused to do as the Commonwealth’s Attorney General).

In May, the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld Kentucky’s Ultrasound Law! Thanks to President Trump’s recent appointments to that court and the courage of a majority of state lawmakers and Governor Bevin, who passed and signed into law that life-affirming measure, women will now have the opportunity to view the ultrasound and, consequently, heart beat of their unborn child prior to an abortion!

Governor Bevin and Kentucky lawmakers have been honoring their civic and constitutional responsibilities through their pro-life convictions and actions. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

The Opinion article refuted by Schu is here.

Schu Montgomery, Opinion contributor | Published 8:39 a.m. ET May 21, 2019 | Updated 8:43 a.m. ET May 21, 2019

“All we are saying is give LIFE a chance!”

Echoes from a bygone anthem (“Give PEACE a chance”) reverberate through many a state capitol rotunda these days as the quest for peace —peace in the womb— grows ever louder.Once the safest place for an unborn child, a mother’s womb has too often become the killing fields.

Our astute Gov. Matt Bevin articulately stated on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight recently that the reason a flurry of legislatures and governors have stepped up their defense of innocent human life with bills challenging Roe v. Wade is because “people are appropriately outraged” that whole “generations of children” are being wiped out — all in the name of “reproductive freedom” or “choice” (certainly misnomers for those hellbent on annihilating little ones in the womb).

More than 60 million preborn babies have lost their lives since Roe’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton, stripped the states (and, therefore, the people) from protecting the preborn during all nine months of a woman’s pregnancy for reasons of “health,” not medical necessity. “Health,” the court so broadly mandated must include the “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age.”

"With the insanity coming out of New York and Virginia … where you got lawmakers and governors basically advocating and celebrating abortion on demand, the country needs to know that there are still some sane people In this world in public office,” said Mississippi State Sen. Angela Hill. Mississippi has joined Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, and most recently, Missouri, among others before this year, in passing heartbeat bills. Read more.

by Schu Montgomery

Hundreds of thousands of hard-working Kentuckians who still uphold the sanctity of life and dream of the day when our government returns to protecting the preborn commend Gov. Matt Bevin and the Kentucky General Assembly for doing all they can to save the lives of unborn children and spare women from a lifetime of psychological and emotional pain, not to mention serious health risks, that do result from abortion.

Kim Greene, a board member at Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc., and other abortion supporters refuse to acknowledge the undeniable fact that every abortion tears apart or poisons a preborn child and is, therefore, inhumane and unjust. Read more.

Pro-Life America is Winning the Abortion War on this 46^th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

by Schu Montgomery

The hundreds of thousands of dedicated pro-life citizens braving blizzards and sub-zero temperatures at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. have much to be hopeful for. Their sacrifice, their tenacity, their prayers are paying off.

Science is on their side, More and more women are facing the truth - abortion kills babies. More and more women are choosing life!

The pervasive presence of 4D ultrasound pictures of preborn children, the crescendo of crisis pregnancy centers outflanking abortion clinics more than 6 to 1, the surging number of abortionists’ (and their staff) quitting their deadly trade, sidewalk counselors peacefully witnessing weekly (if not daily) on the streets outside the killing centers, and the passing of many pieces of protective pro-life legislation, including the latest - to end discrimination of babies based on gender, race, or disability - are contributing to the eventual banishment of state-sanctioned slaughter of 60-million preborn children since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision of January 22, 1973.

While there were 2,176 clinics doing surgical abortions in America in 1991, today there are 467 such facilities, a notable decrease of 79 percent! An imploding abortion industry struggles to remain solvent amid a falling demand for abortions. In 2016, there were 164 abortion facilities that conducted abortions at 20 weeks or later - 31 more than in 2018. This represents an impressive 19 percent reduction in the number of very-late-term abortion facilities over the past two years. In 2018 alone, 40 abortion clinics closed, some due to failure in complying with existing laws and safety regulations.

Not since Dred Scott in 1857 (declaring Blacks non-persons) has there been a high court ruling so destructive, so divisive, so unforgiving of God’s innocents’ and the sanctity of human life. As Justice Byron White, one of the two dissenters in Roe so aptly put it, the landmark case was an act of “raw judicial power.” It pitted mother against child, stripped states of the right to set their own abortion policies, and contradicted the very language and history of the Constitution.

Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton (its lesser known companion case) said it was okay to tear apart, vacuum out, or poison a baby up to the point of birth for reasons of “health” so broad to include not only a woman’s physical. emotional, or psychological well-being, but her social health as well, and her age. Today, the vast majority of abortions are done because a woman feels pressure to abort from someone else, or because she simply doesn’t want or can’t afford a child (many couples, unable to have children of their own, would love to adopt).

The grassroots movement - to protect both mother and child, to love them both - has always been about righting a horrendous wrong. Women, too, suffer great pain - physically, mentally, and spiritually - and are Increasingly finding out that legalized abortion is not the panacea for unplanned pregnancy.

This is why lawmakers across the country have successfully passed “Women Right to Know” laws informing women of the risks and complications of both surgical and chemical abortions.

Women have the right to know that abortion can exacerbate a woman’s risk for breast cancer. A 2013 analysis by the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute confirms the correlation between abortion and breast cancer after reviewing some two dozen studies.

Moreover, a 2011 British Journal of Psychology meta-study on the mental-health effects of abortion on over 877,000 women shows increased rates of depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug use, and suicide.

The shrugging off of actual studies demonstrating significant increases in premature birth or low-birth-weight babies in women who had prior abortions and the dismissiveness of reliable data showing that tele-med abortions - which don’t require a physician to administer the abortion drug, or even worse, examine the woman -do a grave disservice to women who deserve fully informed consent.

Given the realities above, plus a plethora of anecdotal evidence showing a steady rise in botched abortions - even death - underscore the need for new laws to protect women from unscrupulous abortion providers.

To cite just one example, the Preterm clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, has performed ten botched abortions since 2011, according to Abortion Stats 2018. That same clinic has been involved in numerous medical emergencies. Lakisha Wilson was 20 weeks pregnant when she hemorrhaged to death while undergoing an abortion at Preterm in 2014. Wilson is only one victim among hundreds who have died from legalized abortion.

Abortion’s lasting emotional scars have prompted many women to form “Silent No More” campaigns - to voice regret, and to help one another find light amid the darkness.

The Pro-Life movement, formed some fifty years ago to uphold the intrinsic value of all life, from the moment of fertilization to natural death, continues its mission to educate and eventually restore the inalienable right to life.

The undeniable truth remains - whether it’s a “he” or “she” - that our genetic make-up or DNA develops into a uniquely, unrepeatable member of the human family.

In a sound, civilized society the weak must be protected from the strong. Who, in our society, is more vulnerable than a preborn child?

Nineteenth century social activist Theodore Parker said it best: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

For pro-lifers, the fulfillment of equal justice for all — born and unborn — is merely a matter of time.

Schu Montgomery is on the board of directors of Right to Life of Louisville and is a teacher at Holy Angels Academy.

By Schu Montgomery, October 1, 2018

“An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health. It may make you sterile, so that when you want a child you cannot have it…Birth control merely postpones the beginning of life.”
- Planned Parenthood pamphlet, 1963

 

What happened over these past 55 years to cause America’s leading “family planning” organization to move from a position of full and honest disclosure with regard to human embryology to the polar opposite position stridently pro-abortion?

Could it be a case of preferring profits over people? Every year, PP clinics are responsible for more than 300,000 abortions, over one-third in this nation. The average abortion costs $450 in the first trimester. Third-trimester abortions (much less in number, though, still legal) can be well over $1000. Amazingly, American tax-dollars continue to subsidize Planned Parenthood to the tune of $500 million a year.

In a recent guest column, Kim Greene of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, never mentioned, never empathized with the unborn child in asserting unlimited access to abortion in our society. Instead, like so many of those taking a similar stance, her exaltation of so-called “reproductive rights” (a bit of a misnomer, you think, for anti-pregnancy advocates?) apparently supersedes the right to life of the littlest among us.

Greene would have us believe that legalized abortion is a good thing, but it is not!

The Roe v. Wade decision back in 1973 dismissed overwhelming scientific proof that life begins at fertilization, reinforced by more recent developments in amazing 4D ultrasound. An entire class of human beings have been, and continue to be, discriminated against, because of their place of residence - in the womb!

Since Roe, state legislatures have tried to enact laws assuring that women are fully informed of the risks and complications of abortion and to require parental involvement with their minor daughters’ abortions - reasonable policies that were originally usurped by the draconian Roe.

Moreover, if Roe is so ‘forward-thinking,’ why then have thousands of women banded together, formed Silent No More testimonials, giving voice to the physical and emotional pain, and regret, they’ve suffered from their own abortions?

Polls have not consistently shown widespread support for the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. To the contrary, America’s massive majority has no clue what Roe even said. When told that Roe’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton, employed a ‘health” exception, giving abortionists unfettered access to dismember, suction, or burn a child to death based on a woman’s “physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age,” support among Americans drops dramatically. The reality is, most abortions are performed not to save a woman’s life, or in cases of rape or incest, but because a woman simply doesn’t want the child. Social reasons account for upwards of 92% of the abortions performed in this country. Closer analysis of a June, 2018 Gallup poll, shows that 55% of Americans would ban those first trimester abortions done for social reasons.

In addition, Greene deceptively infers legal abortion means “safe” abortion, when in fact, countless women are butchered, some even die, for reasons that include hemorrhaging, infection, embolism, anesthesia complication, and cardiac arrest. Cases from as far away as Albuquerque and as close as St. Louis are well-documented on-line by Operation Rescue and the Centers for Disease Control, a government agency.

The truth is, killing babies and maiming women has done nothing to secure justice, solve women’s social problems, nor create a more compassionate America.

Those of us who believe in the right to life of ALL people need to get involved — to speak up for the voiceless, to defend our defenseless members of the human family. Vote to elect pro-life candidates in the mid-terms, and register to vote if you still haven’t. Become active in the Right to Life movement and attend the Kentucky Right to Life Conference, October 27th, at the Red Lion Inn in Elizabethtown. Become better informed by listening to keynote speakers Dr. Matthew Harrison, who performed the first abortion pill reversal in 2006, and Melissa Ohden, who survived being aborted herself.

In every abortion, an innocent child dies. The schizophrenia of pro-abortionists, who consider sacrosanct the birth of their own children yet so easily devalue the lives of other children not yet born, is mind-boggling and indefensible. This cannot be tolerated any longer in a sound society.

Can’t we, as a free people, love them both - mother and child?