First amendment, schmirst amendment

This is truly outrageous -- Pro-Life Pastor Hoye Gets 30 Days in Jail for Helping Women at Abortion Center

Oakland, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life African-American pastor has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for sharing a pro-life message outside local abortion centers. Walter Hoye was previously found guilty of violating what pro-life attorneys call an unconstitutional city law designed specifically to target him....

The ordinance prohibits contact within eight feet of women entering abortion businesses without their consent.

Today, Hoye was sentenced by Judge Hing of the Alameda Superior Court to serve 30 days in county jail . The court will allow Hoye to serve his time by an alternative method such as community service.

However, Hoye will be forced to pay a $1,130 fine and has been ordered to stay away from the abortion business and no longer help women find abortion alternatives.

Hoye is an African-American pastor who feels a special calling to work for the end of abortion because abortion centers specifically target the black community....

As part of his efforts, he stands in front of an abortion center in Oakland with leaflets offering abortion alternatives and a sign reading, "Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help."

Leaflets offering abortion alternatives?! How dare he try to encourage women to make an informed choice?

I don't know if this sentence will be overturned successfully, but it certainly should. Mr. Hoye is being defended by the Life Legal Defense Foundation if you want to offer your support or a donation.

Free speech, but not helpful

Man With Pro-Life Anti-Obama Sign Pulled Over, Faces Police, Secret Service

Enid, OK (LifeNews.com) -- An Oklahoma man with a homemade sign on his vehicle was pulled over and harassed by police for allegedly making a threat against the president. Chip Harrison said he was driving to work when a police officer followed him for several miles and eventually signaled him to pull over.

The officer mistook the sign, which read "Abort Obama, not the unborn," as threatening.

"I pulled over, knowing I hadn't done anything wrong," Harrison told the McClatchy-Tribune news service in a interview.

"It's not meant to be a threat, it's a statement about abortion," Harrison said, saying he disagrees with Obama. "I asked the officer, 'Do you know what abort means?' He said, 'Yeah, it means to kill.' I said, 'No, it means to remove or terminate.'"

The officers confiscated the sign and gave him a slip of paper saying he would be subjected to an investigation...

Clearly the authorities overreacted here. I don't think any reasonable person would interpret an "Abort Obama, not the unborn" bumper sticker as a credible threat to the President.

Mr. Harrison has his right to free speech, but I wish he (and anyone else considering it) would think twice before using language such as "Abort Obama." Over-the-top messages like that only feed into the Left's stereotypes that portray Pro-Lifers as unhinged kooks.

That said, I don't recall hearing about the creators of these works of art being harassed by police or secret service...









Just saying.

Power to the Papal

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and "ardent Catholic," visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican today, and The Corner has a couple good posts about it.

1. How both sides spun the content of the meeting: Were They At The Same Meeting?

2. How the conversation may have gone: Speaker in Rome

Forced abortion -- worse than rape?

This story is particularly disturbing: Former Patient, Rape Victim, Accuses Abortion Practitioner of Forced Abortion

[Jennifer McCoy] was 16-years old in 1988 when she discovered that she was pregnant, news that she welcomed since she believed that she was in love with her baby's father. She had no thought of abortion because she believed it was wrong.

However, the baby's father was her 39-year old high school ROTC teacher who was married and had a family of his own, including a daughter that was Jennifer's age. Their relationship qualified as statutory rape.

Jennifer's mother found out about the relationship, but instead of reporting her daughter's sexual abuse to the authorities, she called the teacher and threatened to expose him if he did not help her persuade Jennifer to have an abortion....

Once at the clinic, she was asked to sign some papers. She signed all the parts related to medical care, but refused to sign anything that discussed abortion. "That's not why I'm here," she repeatedly told the clinic staff.

Jennifer was then given an ultrasound examination. She asked to see her baby, but her request was refused. "It really isn't necessary," she was told.

She was placed in an examination room, and after a long wait, Hodari entered the room. She told him that she was just there for an exam....

Hodari began the exam. "Then all of a sudden I was in excruciating pain," Jennifer recalled. "I tried to sit up, and I heard a machine turn on, like a vacuum, and I realized what was going on."

"I tried to get up from the table. I actually tried to sit up, and he pushed me back down on the table and told me if I moved I could die. It would be over in five minutes and I could go on with my life. I was scared to death at that point that what he said was true, and so all I could do is lay there and cry...."

This poor girl was violated twice -- once as a victim of statutory rape, and once as a victim of an abortion against her will.

I welcome a discussion about this, but I would argue that the forced abortion is the worse of the two offenses. In both cases the girl's body is violated, and both result in horrible emotional trauma. With the abortion, though, she has the added pain of losing the life of her baby.

Where am I going wrong here?

Out of bounds

This story is disturbing:

Nevada City, CA (LifeNews.com) -- The parents of a 12-year-old girl have filed a lawsuit against a California school district after local school officials forced their daughter to submit to a pregnancy test. Attorneys with the Pacific Justice Institute are representing the student and her parents, who had no knowledge of the test.

In March 2008, Steve Davis, a counselor at Seven Hills Middle School, pulled the student, whose initials are C.R., out of class.

Davis had heard rumors from another student that the young girl was pregnant and demanded to know wether that information was true. The girl denied she was pregnant and told Davis that students had spread false rumors about her in the past.

Instead of accepting the girl's denial as fact or contacting her parents, Davis obtained a pregnancy test from the school nurse and ordered the girl into the bathroom to give a urine sample. Assuming she had no choice, the girl complied and the test came back negative.

That this counselor forced the girl to take a pregnancy test against her will and without her parents' consent or knowledge is bad enough. I worry more, though, about just what Mr. Davis intended to do if the test had been positive.

Good news

For women worried about increasing risk of breast cancer or even presently undergoing cancer treatment, a new study shows that it is not necessary for a mother to choose between the life of her baby and her health. She can have both.

Houston, TX (LifeNews.com) -- A new study finds that pregnancy does not increase the risk of breast cancer and that abortion is not a requirement for pregnant women who find themselves with breast cancer. Some doctors suggest that such women have an abortion so they can focus on treating the cancer.

But the study, involving patients at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, puts to rest some earlier studies suggesting maternity makes cancer situations worse.

Dr. Beth Beadle, who works at the prestigious medical center and is the lead author of the study, told AP that both mother and baby can be cared for during treatment.

"If we can get them early, we can treat them aggressively and have good and promising outcomes for both woman and child," she said....

Good news, indeed.

What say you, Mr. President?

No matter where you stand on the abortion issue, this should outrage you: Lawsuit: Florida Clinic Botched Abortion, Threw Out Live Baby

TAMPA, Florida — Eighteen and pregnant, Sycloria Williams went to an abortion clinic outside Miami and paid $1,200 for Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique to terminate her 23-week pregnancy.

Three days later, she sat in a reclining chair, medicated to dilate her cervix and otherwise get her ready for the procedure.

Only Renelique didn't arrive in time. According to Williams and the Florida Department of Health, she went into labor and delivered a live baby girl.

What Williams and the Health Department say happened next has shocked people on both sides of the abortion debate: One of the clinic's owners, who has no medical license, cut the infant's umbilical cord. Williams says the woman placed the baby in a plastic biohazard bag and threw it out....

"The baby was just treated as a piece of garbage," said Tom Brejcha, president of The Thomas More Society, a law firm that is also representing Williams. "People all over the country are just aghast...."

So here's the question: Given that while in the Illinois Senate, Barack Obama opposed the state's version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act multiple times, what about this little girl? This would be a good opportunity for President Obama to clarify his position -- did she deserve legal protection after being born alive?

What say you, Mr. President?

Criminal negligence

The UFI Blog points us to video obtained by LiveAction.org's Mona Lisa project of a Planned Parenthood operation in Tuscon deliberately concealing the sexual abuse of a minor.

TUCSON, AZ, Feb. 3 – New hidden-camera footage from Tucson, AZ, implicates a third Planned Parenthood clinic in a multi-state child abuse scandal. In the video, UCLA student Lila Rose and her friend Jackie Stollar enter a Tucson Planned Parenthood clinic where Rose tells the nurse that Stollar, posing as a 15-year-old, is pregnant by her 27-year-old boyfriend. The nurse disregards the age difference and even cautions Stollar not to bring her "boyfriend" before the judicial hearing required in Arizona to waive parental consent for an abortion. This negligence is punishable under Arizona law....

Here's the video:



As it says: Expose the abuse. Pass this video along.

Hope Obama's watching the polls

According to the Gallup poll released today for approval of President Obama, his lifting the ban on federal funding of overseas abortion providers is the least popular thing he's done so far!



Only 35% approve of the reversal of the Mexico City policy. That is a very good sign!

(HT K-Lo at The Corner)