Pro-Life Page

BY BEN JOHNSON

Mon Sep 30, 2013 17:54 EST

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 30, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As President Obama and Senate Democrats stand their ground, House Republicans have dropped provisions barring the funding of abortion and delaying the HHS mandate for one year.

Early Sunday morning, the House approved the two measures as part of a bill to keep most federal programs funded and avoid a government shutdown. The bill included zero funding for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), conventionally known as ObamaCare.

As promised, Senate Democrats stripped the provisions out of the continuing resolution on a party line, 54-46 vote.

Regrouping, the House GOP abandoned the pro-life and religious liberty provisions from the bill.

Their new proposal instead delays ObamaCare's individual mandate for one year and eliminates subsidies for Congressional staffers' health insurance.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said he was “disappointed,” because the new bill “ignores the threat to religious freedom that ObamaCare poses and does nothing to address the abortion subsidies that will take effect.”

David Christensen, FRC's director of Congressional affairs, agreed this afternoon that the Republican proposal “doesn't fix the problem of abortion subsidies [and] doesn't fix the problem of” personal conscience violations.

Under the terms of the Affordable Care Act's HHS mandate, employers must provide all employees with insurance plans that include abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception with no co-pay, or pay a fine of $100 per employee per day.

The House had not voted on the new bill as of press time. However, the Senate is certain to reject it, as its Democratic leadership has said it will not negotiate with the House.

The rhetoric surrounding this issue has become so polarized that Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who aligns with the Democrats, has said opponents of ObamaCare are “guilty of murder.”

On Monday afternoon President Obama remained defiant, telling National Public Radio, “I shouldn’t have to offer anything” to House Republicans in exchange for the support of his signature health care bill.

Instead, Obama said a partial government shutdown is “entirely preventable if the House chooses to do what the Senate has already done, and that's the simple act of funding our government without making extraneous and controversial demands in the process.”

However, it is ObamaCare that is controversial and increasingly unpopular, with less than 40 percent of Americans approving of the measure.

The Republicans who control the House of Representatives hoped to tie a delay in its implementation to a must-pass bill to keep the government operating at its current levels.

The government runs out of money, and ObamaCare is set to go into effect for individuals, at midnight.

Congressman Darrell Issa, R-CA, suggested the House up the ante by forcing members of the Obama administration to sign up for the same benefits the are foisting on the American people. The Affordable Care Act exempts them from enrolling in what is acknowledged as inferior health care.

Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, said that is the only provision that could assure the successful delay of the Obama health care bill. Without such a threat, he believes their actions are doomed to failure.

“It’s great that House Republicans are sending the Senate a bill delaying ObamaCare for a year,” hewrote. “Why don’t they want it to pass?” 

BY BEN JOHNSON

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Senator Ted Cruz's 21-hour epic floor speech to defund ObamaCare may have won him no friends in the media or GOP leadership, but pro-life and conservative leaders are enthusiastic about his efforts.

“Thank you Senator Cruz for giving a voice to all of us!” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, this morning.

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, simply said, “Ted Cruz is the man!”

Other conservatives praised Cruz's actions, contrasting his passion with that of the president.

“Ted Cruz stayed up all night to fight ObamaCare,” Congressman Steve Stockman, R-TX, quipped on Wednesday morning. “Obama went to bed while Ambassador Stevens [of Libya] was being murdered.”

Others on the other side of the aisle were less receptive.

California Democratic Congressman Mark Takano, a supporter of abortion-on-demand, tweeted a photo parodying Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift's video awards' acceptance speech: “Ted Cruz, Ima let you finish but Wendy Davis had the greatest filibuster of all time!”

A veritable host of news outlets and pro-life leaders pointed out how the media's coverage of Cruz's speech conflicted with its prior reports of Wendy Davis' 11-hour filibuster in the Texas Senate, in which they lionized the pro-abortion Democrat for temporarily stalling the passage of a 20-week abortion ban and tighter health standards for abortion facilities.

The New York Times described Davis' speech as “The Great Abortion Filibuster,” while yesterday's editorial headline derided “The Embarrassment of Senator Ted Cruz.”

The Huffington Post called Davis' actions “The Filibuster Heard 'Round the World,” while saying,“Cruz Hijacks Senate.”

Talking Points Memo writer Josh Marshall called Cruz an “arrogant jerk.”

Even Politico acknowledged a double-standard.

At the time of Davis' filibuster, Cruz told the media that most Texans still oppose abortion. Wendy Davis declined to comment on Cruz's speech.

Davis is mulling over whether to run for governor of Texas, a decision she will make by October 3.

Cruz clearly has an eye on his own political aspirations. Polls showed the freshman senator a leading contender for the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination before the speech, but the speech has boosted Cruz's stock in the eyes of crucial primary voters.

A conservative super PAC, Virginia Principles Fund, will go on the air Monday with a $300,000 TV buy to attack Terry McAuliffe’s support for abortion rights and to criticize his business record.

Sarah Huckabee, who runs the organization, said the group’s research shows the Democrat’s position on abortion is “one of his greatest vulnerabilities in this race.” McAuliffe is running for governor of Virginia against Republican Ken Cuccinelli.

The anti-abortion ad, shared early with POLITICO, will run in the Norfolk and Roanoke media markets with roughly 1,000 gross rating points in each.

“The gift of life: innocent, beautiful, a miracle from God and our responsibility to protect,” a female narrator says softly as a young girl lays her head on a pregnant mother’s tummy and another mother softly kisses a newborn’s forehead. ”Terry McAuliffe supports abortion on demand at any time for any reason — paid for by Virginia taxpayers!”

A second spot hitting McAuliffe’s ties to bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing will run in the Richmond market.

“Virginians are hurting: not enough good-paying jobs, working two or more jobs to pay the bill,” the narrator says in that ad. “Terry McAuliffe talks about what he’ll do to help, but what has he done? Terry McAuliffe got rich off a company that went bankrupt and laid off 10,000 workers. Ten thousand workers lost their jobs, their health care, their livelihood while McAuliffe made millions.”

The tagline of both spots is, “Terry McAuliffe: Not our values, wrong for Virginia.”

The McAuliffe campaign has focused much of its advertising — especially in Northern Virginia — on Cuccinelli’s views on social issues, and abortion-rights groups are also plotting heavy flights of ads ahead of November’s election.

“Considering that Ken Cuccinelli wants to make abortion illegal even in cases of rape and incest, has tried to outlaw common forms of birth control like the pill and even said his ultimate goal is to make abortion disappear in America, it’s no surprise that his extreme friends would try to come in and rescue him by launching false and misleading attacks,” said McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin.

BY BEN JOHNSON

PHILADELPHIA, September 23, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, whose trial for murder and infanticide laid bare the dark underbelly of the abortion industry, told a journalist in a forthcoming interview that believes that he was a “soldier” out to eradicate poverty...one dead baby at a time.

The “house of horrors” abortionist, who is serving three consecutive life sentences for murdering at least three newborns, made his comments during an interview with Steve Volk of Philadelphia Magazine. The full article will hit news stands tomorrow.

Volk told ABC News that he discovered during his extensive interviews that, far from showing remorse, Gosnell “sees himself as having performed a noble function in society.”

“In this larger spiritual sense, he believes he was performing a service for people,” Volk said.

"It's not as if he feels guilty about what he did,” Volk said. "He believes he was a soldier at war with poverty.”

Gosnell's abortion facility, the Women's Medical Society, was located at 3801 Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia and preyed upon lower income women. Two of them, Semika Shaw and Karnamaya Mongar, died while in his care.

According to ABC News, “Gosnell said that one death in 40 years of practice does not indicate a poor record.”

Mongar, a native of Bhutan, died in 2009 after untrained staff administered an overdose of Demerol. Gosnell's second-in-command, Eileen O'Neill, was later convicted on multiple counts for practicing medicine without a license.

“He has a sense of righteousness, that whatever rule he broke, it was worth it,” he said.

"He believes if he could have spoken about his rationale for doing things, he wouldn't be in jail,” Volk said. “He believes he was in a war, and that 'they' won."

It is unclear that pro-life politics played any role in his conviction. Nine of the 12 Gosnell jury members described themselves as “pro-choice.”

Gosnell's self-confidence is anything but new. Defense attorney Jack McMahon told reporters after the verdict that the murderer“truly believes in himself.”

Gosnell ran a filthy facility that broke state law hundreds of times by performing late-term abortions and infanticides until February 2010, when police raided his office on suspicion that he was peddling prescription drugs.

They found cat urine and the blood of his patients – and unborn or newborn victims – staining operating tables and recliners in the “recovery room.” Unsterilized equipment spread STDs between his patients.

In the basement, they found the remains of 47 aborted children packed away in boxes, jugs, and even a lime-ade container. They discovered the doctor regularly allowed babies to be born alive, then cut their spinal column with scissors as they wriggled around in his hands.

According to staff, he once joked, “That's what you call a chicken with its head cut off.” In another instance, he remarked a baby was “big enough to walk me to the bus stop.”

In May, a jury convicted Gosnell of first-degree murder for slicing the spinal cords of three newborn babies with scissors.

Former employees at the medical office, which prosecutors dubbed a “house of horrors,” say they had witnessed the abortionist perform infanticide hundreds of times.

In July, he entered a guilty plea to running a prescription drug operation. According to prosecutors, the abortionist made at least $200,000 peddling prescriptions between June 2008 and February 2010.

Patients paid him $20 per script and gave his employees an additional $10 or $20.

In all, Gosnell earned an estimated $1.8 million a year at his office, lifting himself out of poverty while exploiting that of his patients.

Operation Rescue has confirmed that an abortionist who wore a butcher’s apron while injuring a woman during an abortion has closed his Cleveland, Ohio, abortion clinic and is moving out of state.

Meanwhile, a Livingston, Montana, abortion clinic has announced its closure as of October 1, 2013, due to the impending retirement of long-time abortionist Susan Wicklund.

These two closures bring the tally of out-of-business abortion businesses to 44 so far this year.

Martin Ruddock, 77, shuttered his Cleveland Center for Women’s Health abortion clinic last week. Ruddock told a covert Operation Rescue investigator that he “couldn’t” continue to do abortions in Ohio and that he would be “helping women” in another state. Ruddock did not elaborate further.

It is possible that Ruddock could not comply with the hospital transfer agreement requirement that is required for abortionists in Ohio and could be taking employment elsewhere.

“The Center for Women’s Health joins a record list of abortion clinics that have closed so far this year. When abortionists like Ruddock shut down, it takes us one step closer to an end to abortion,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “However, we are concerned about women in whatever state Ruddock might relocate. This aging abortionist isn’t likely to improve his shoddy practices anytime soon.”

In 2006, Ruddock was forced to temporarily close after Ohio Department of Health inspectors discovered that the clinic was not meeting even the most rudimentary of medical standards, such as taking a patient’s temperature and blood pressure before risky late-term abortion surgeries.

In September 2012, Ruddock appeared outside his abortion clinic during a medical emergency wearing what appeared to be a butcher’s apron. He was overseeing the transfer from his abortion clinic to an awaiting ambulance of a 26-year old second-trimester abortion patient suffering from a high fever and disorientation.

Five weeks later, an ambulance transported a 30-year old woman suffering lacerations and heavy bleeding after Ruddock botched her abortion at 22 weeks. Records of a 911 call obtained through open records requests indicated she was “bleeding bad” and passing large blood clots larger than a 50 cent piece.

In Livingston, Montana, the Mountain Country Women’s Clinic has halted all abortions and announced that it will be closing after only four years in business so that its abortionist-owner, Susan Wicklund, can “focus her attention on her health and her family.” Wicklund, 58, has been committing abortions for 26 years and has maintained a high public profile in support of abortion, even publishing a book about her experiences as an abortionist.

Mountain Country Women’s Clinic and Ohio’s Center for Women’s Health are the latest to join the unprecedented and ever-growing list abortion clinic closures across America this year.

Reasons for the closures include:

• A declining abortion rate.
• Increased pro-life sentiment.
• A flood of new state laws that establish abortion standards.
• Increased enforcement of existing laws.
• Retirement of aging abortionists.
• Greater incidents of documentation and reporting of abortion abuses by pro-life activists.

“Interestingly, the abortion cartel is failing due to their bad behavior. Some can’t meet minimum safety standards and close rather than clean up. Others may be able to ensure proper emergency care by failing to secure hospital transfer agreements or privileges. Still others have negligence issues and are forced to close by states that are beginning to inspect and enforce new and existing laws,” said Newman. “This is a trend that we expect to continue until abortion is abolished in our country once and for all.”

BY BEN JOHNSON

Dr. Ulrich George Klopfer performed a suction curettage abortion on a young black girl at Fort Wayne Women's Health Organization on February 7. The baby was at 11 weeks gestation. The girl had not yet reached the eighth grade.

Under Indiana law, Klopfer is required to report cases of suspected sexual abuse within three days. He instead reported the abortion nearly six months later, on July 25. (Read his reporthere.)

Allen County Right to Life Executive Director Cathie Humbargerand sidewalk counselor Evelyn Witte each filed complaints with Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller and the Indiana Medical Licensing Board over the abortionist's failure to act.

“I request the immediate suspension of the medical license of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer” pending “a full investigation,” they wrote.

"It's heartbreaking to learn that a 13-year-old became pregnant and now must live with the pain of an abortion for the rest of her life,” Humbarger said in a press release. “But it's doubly-heartbreaking that Dr. Klopfer's failure to report the abortion may have allowed the girl's molester to walk."

Worse yet, this may not be the first such incident, according to the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, which broke the story.

Last year, Klopfer failed to report another abortion of another 13-year-old girl in Lake County, according to another complaint filed by Humbarger. The complaint has not yet been ruled on.

Minors younger than 14 cannot consent to sex under state law, and authorities investigate such pregnancies as possible cases of statutory rape or molestation.

“Sadly, this is not the first time I have filed a complaint over Klopfer’s failure to report an abortion on a 13-year-old within the time frame required by law, yet he still practices today,” Humbarger said. “His failure to report is appalling.”

Last year, a pro-life protester caught Klopfer on video screaming about her 12-year-old daughter being gang raped. Ulrich briefly confronted a sidewalk counselor outside South Bend's Women’s Pavilion abortion facility, where the Illinois resident also performs abortions. “And while your little girl gets raped by 10 guys, gets pregnant with twins, you’re gonna have your grandchildren,” he screamed. “Shut up!”

The state abortion industry has a murky history of withholding the records of underage girls from state officials. Planned Parenthood fought a nearly two-year court battle against then-state Attorney General Steve Carter, when he requested the medical records of 73 girls under the age of 14 who had abortions, although he vowed to respect the girls' confidentiality. The lawsuit was settled in late 2006 in Planned Parenthood's favor.

Two years later, Lila Rose personally filmed undercover exposés at a Bloomington Planned Parenthood and another abortion facility in Indianapolis. In each case, she told them she was a 13-year-old girl impregnated by her 31-year-old “boyfriend.”

At both institutions, employees responded by saying they “didn't want to know” or “really don't care about” the perpetrator's age and suggested ways she could avoid the state's parental consent law.

The ongoing violation of the law should raise eyebrows, and invite legal scrutiny, the state's pro-life leaders say.

“Klopfer's failure to report this abortion raises serious red flags about his abortion business,” Mike Fichter, President and CEO of Indiana Right to Life, added in the same press release. “If he fails to send in a one-page form when he does an abortion on a 13-year-old, how can anyone know if he is following state abortion law in other areas such as informed consent, facility standards and appropriately determining the age of the baby before he aborts him or her?”

Humbarger said she found just such a legal evasion, filing a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department that the Fort Wayne office, located at 2210 Inwood Drive, is not wheelchair accessible.

The Obama administration declined to investigate. 

BY BEN JOHNSON

McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who is now running for governor against pro-life stalwart Ken Cuccinelli, said he will take executive action to sidestep the requirements on behalf of subpar abortion facilities.

Reviewing the circumstances of abortion facilities in the Old Dominion, he said, “Norfolk is closed.Fairfax is closed, or closing, so there will be 18 [abortion facilities] left.”

“Only one of those 18 actually meet the requirements, so they'll all close” without an assist from a friendly governor.

“I will issue what's called a guidance opinion by mid-March ,” he said, “to grandfather in those remaining clinics to keep them open.”

“That's why this election is so important, and I will do that." he vowed.

Steve Rossie of the Virginia-based Family Foundation said that McAuliffe “has made clear during the campaign that he opposes the standards, enabled as part of a bipartisan law passed during the 2011 General Assembly, but this is the first time he has said he will repeal or alter them Barack-Obama-style by some type of executive action without legislative approval.”

He calls the promise “reckless,” especially in light of Kermit Gosnell, who routinely flouted Pennsylvania state law and health standards that had not been enforced under multiple administrations.

“Remember, it was then-Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge who ignored the law in that state requiring abortion center inspections that allowed Gosnell to go unnoticed for years, harming untold numbers of women and children,” Rossie said.

According to the group Women Speak Out, “the Virginia Health Commissioner reported to the Board of Health that more than 80 violations were discovered in abortion centers.”

The Virginia showdown, now seven weeks away, is considered the most important race in the nation, and a possible precusor of how the state will vote in the 2016 presidential election.

Polls show McAuliffe with a modest edge.

However, he enjoys a significant advantage in fundraising. The former DNC chairman has extensive contacts around the country, as well as deep ties to the Clinton family.

Former President Clinton sent McAuliffe $100,000 from his own funds.

Tom Steyer, a California-based billionaire and environmentalist activist, has spent $400,000 for attack ads against Cuccinelli.

McAuliffe met earlier this month with retiring New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Independent billionaire who favors abortion-on-demand, gay “marriage,”nanny state health regulations, and gun control.

The abortion lobby long ago cast its lot with McAuliffe. Planned Parenthood teamed up with McAuliffeto launch the attack website, Keep Ken Out.

McAuliffe and his allies have used pro-abortion donations to finance an ad accusing Cuccinelli of waging a “war on abortion” and a mass mailing accusing the attorney general of being “way out there.”

Most recently, NARAL Virginia released undercover audio of a volunteer purportedly catching crisis pregnancy centers staff telling “lies” to pregnant women, although Adam Cassandra of Human Life International notes that the audio “contains zero falsehoods.”

Cuccinelli has earned the abortion industry's ire, voting to overturn then-Democratic Governor Mark Warner's veto of the partial birth abortion ban, drafting the state's parental consent law, leading efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, and insisting the state's abortion facilities meet the same health standards as other surgical centers.

Last April, the state attorney general said that LifeSiteNews.com is "the homepage for one of the computers in our house" at a fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C.

He explained to Tony Perkins on AFR Talk Thursday afternoon that the importance of the race is that it will be “the first step back for conservatives if we can win in 2013, as we head toward 2014.”

In the midterm elections, Republicans hope to retain control of the House and take back the U.S. Senate.

But Cuccinelli said, although many people wish him well, significant financial “support hasn't been there.”

“I could really use the help at Cuccinelli.com,” he said.

Update: The Huffington Post assessed the "dramatic toll" that recent pro-life lawshave taken on abortion clinics, with Arizona leading the way. Meanwhile, the abortion battle has gone digital as more states ban abortions by telemedicine.

CT has examined the new pro-life surge in-depth.

(BP) For Abby Johnson, the closing of a single Planned Parenthood center demonstrated her dramatic reversal from abortion clinic director to leading pro-life advocate.

But for pro-lifers throughout the United States, it marked another exhibit in a hopeful trend—abortion centers are shutting down at an unprecedented rate. The total so far this year is 44, according to a pro-life organization that tracks clinic operations.

None was more telling for Johnson than the mid-July closing of the Planned Parenthood center in Bryan, Texas. It came less than four years after Johnson, burdened by her involvement with abortion, walked out of that clinic as its director and into the offices of the Coalition for Life.

"Knowing that the former abortion clinic I once ran is now closing is the biggest personal victory of my life," Johnson said in a written statement after the announcement of the shutdown. "From running that facility, to then advocating for its closure, and now celebrating that dream ... it shows that my life has indeed come full circle."

Since her celebrated conversion from Planned Parenthood director, Johnson has started a ministry to help workers leave the abortion industry. She has pledged, as she said in July, to "fight until every abortion clinic in this country has shut its doors."

This year, 42 clinics that provided surgical abortions have shut their doors, and two that offered chemical abortions by drugs also have closed, according to Operation Rescue, which monitors closings and health and safety violations by clinics nationwide. That number far surpasses the 25 surgical clinics shutdown last year and the 30 in 2011, by Operation Rescue's count. While others estimate a smaller number of closings, the pattern is clear.

Some of the shutdowns have been of major clinics. For instance, Virginia's No. 1 abortion provider closed, The Washington Post reported in July. NOVA Women's Healthcare in Fairfax, Va., shut down after state and local governments enacted regulations the abortion provider appeared unable to meet. The northern Virginia clinic performed 3,066 abortions in 2012 and 3,567 in 2011.

The reasons given for the upswing in closings are varied even among pro-lifers. They include:

-- the increasing state regulation and oversight of clinics;

-- a growth in pro-life opinion and activity, and

-- a significant decline in the abortion rate.

In some cases, clinics have shut down when abortion doctors retired or were no longer licensed.

State legislatures enacted 69 pro-life laws this year, according to a report released Thursday (Sept. 5) by Americans United for Life. In all, 48 states considered about 360 such proposals in 2013, AUL reported.

The legislative action this year continued a recent trend in states: 70 "life-affirming measures" became law in 2011 and 38 in 2012, according to AUL.

Some measures have targeted making the procedure and clinics safer for women, and have helped escalate the number of clinic shutdowns. This year, states such as Alabama, North Carolina and Texas passed varied laws either requiring abortion clinics to meet the same health and safety standards as outpatient surgical centers, or authorizing the state to enforce such requirements. Also, in 2013, North Dakota and Wisconsin joined Alabama and Texas in mandating abortion doctors have admitting privileges at local hospitals.

Editor's note: Read the full Baptist Press article here. CT has previously reported on abortion clinic restrictions and legislation restricting abortion. CT also covered pro-life groups exposing abortion practices and how pro-lifers are winning theabortion battle.

Pro-life activists gathered on the twelfth anniversary of the September 11 attacks at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia, to expose an African-American abortionist found to be preying on women of color.

“As America remembered the terrible attack on 9-11, I stood in front of Planned Parenthood in Virginia Beach,” said Dr. Day Gardner, President of the National Black Pro-Life Union in Washington, D.C. “I prayed knowing that while this 

The pro-life activists held signs with Tamer Middleton’s photo and name in front of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. Middleton is a “fly-in” abortionist who is known to work at abortion clinics in predominately Black neighborhoods, including Planned Parenthood in Mobile, Alabama, and a Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where late-term abortions are done. Ironically, medical licensing sites list her “specialty” as “Family Medicine.”

The group also objects to the fact that Middleton, who is based in Georgia, travels to Virginia Beach to abort babies then leaves the state, providing no continuity of care to women suffering from complications from abortions.

Their fears for the safety of women and the lives of babies are well-founded. Operation Rescue published photos taken by a local activist of an ambulance at the same Planned Parenthood and a 911 recording revealing a life-threatening medical emergency that put one patient in the hospital in October, 2011.

For more information about Tamer Middleton, please visit AbortionDocs.org.

LifeNews.com Note: Cheryl Sullenger is a leader of Operation Rescue, a pro-life that monitors abortion practitioners and exposes their illegal and unethical practices.

BY LIFESITENEWS.COM

Albuquerque, NM, September 9, 2013 (OperationRescue.org) – The Albuquerque Journal released results of a poll today that shows 54% of Albuquerque voters support the proposed municipal ban on abortions after 20 weeks, when babies are known to feel pain. Only 39% opposed the ordinance.

The late-term abortion ban particularly enjoyed favor among Hispanic people, 57% of whom support the ordinance regardless of party affiliation. Those who identified as Republicans expressed an overwhelming 80% support for the ordinance.

This is the first known effort to ban late-term abortions on the municipal level. Albuquerque holds the dubious distinction of being known as the “Late-term Capital of America” because it is the site of Southwestern Women’s Options, the largest late-term abortion clinic in the U.S.

“This poll shows what we have been saying all along, that the proposed Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance has wide support in Albuquerque. Putting this ordinance to a vote is the right thing to do,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “Late-term abortion is a barbaric and dangerous practice that has no place in a civilized society. There are better, more compassionate alternatives for women in the late stages of pregnancy than inflicting upon them and their babies the brutality of abortion.”

Organizers used the legislative initiative process to get the ban on a city-wide ballot after it became clear that the predominately pro-abortion Democratic state legislature would not act. Needing only about 12,000 signatures of registered voters to place the ordinance on the ballot, organizers gathered a remarkable 27,000 signatures in 20 days.

City Council President Dan Lewis, who says he supports the late-term abortion ban, has indicated that he will introduce a resolution at the next city council meeting on Monday to place the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance on a city-wide ballot on November 19th. The election would be conducted via a mail-in ballot. That resolution is expected to be adopted by the city council.

Tara Shaver of Project Defending Life acts as spokesperson for the ordinance effort. She gathered documentation through open records requests that indicated ambulances were transporting women to hospital emergency rooms from Southwestern Women’s Options at an alarming rate. Over a dozen 911 records showed women were experiencing life-threatening complications to abortions as late as 35 weeks ranging from a ruptured uterus to heavy hemorrhage. Southwestern Women’s Options is a freestanding abortion clinic that is not equipped to handle serious complications that arise from the risky late abortions.

Last month, Operation Rescue staff members participated in a pro-life training conference in Albuquerque, which was followed by street protests conducted by Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Abortion supporters criticized the protests as “outsiders” trying to affect city policies. However, Newman has a different take on who the “outsiders” really are.

“Both of the clinic’s primary abortionists, Shelley Sella and Susan Robinson, fly in to Albuquerque from California to do the abortions then fly out again. Neither hold local hospital privileges. In fact, the clinic is owned by Texas abortionist Curtis Boyd. They are the ones coming in to Albuquerque to cause issues,” said Newman. “The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance is truly a grass-roots effort put forward by people who live in Albuquerque, like the Shavers. It is supported by pro-life groups around the country because women from every state are currently traveling to Albuquerque to have these dangerous abortions at the latest stages of pregnancy. The poll confirms that it is the out-of state abortionists who are out-of-step with the people of Albuquerque.”

While critics say the ordinance is illegal since it runs contrary to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that decriminalized abortion, pro-life activists argue that Supreme Court precedent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey narrowed the Roe ruling, allowing states to regulate and even ban late-term abortions. Bans similar to Albuquerque’s proposed ordinance have been passed in 11 states and introduced at the Federal level.

“This ordinance has a high probability of success, given the popular support in the community, and we are confident it will pass constitutional muster if it is ever challenged,” said Newman.