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Law Would Require Centers that Don't Offer Abortions to Post Signs: Editorial

 
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A Los Angeles Times story released on Nov. 24, stated that the Baltimore City Council approved legislation that forces crisis centers to post signs if they won’t provide abortion or birth-control referrals. The mayor has the power to veto the law.

This new law is the first of its kind in the country. Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, sponsored the bill, and she called it a victory for women’s well being. Rawlings-Blake referred to a study by an advocacy group which concluded that women have been traditionally misled at pregnancy centers that provide counseling, food and clothing for pregnant women; but do not offer abortion services.

The Council President said, “It’s a step toward making sure that women have the information they need to make the right decision for their health and their future.”
Maryland Right-to-Life legislative director Jeffrey Meister, disagrees and voiced disappointment about the “message” that the bill sends.( I find it ironic that a man is the director of this group, considering that he has no real knowledge of pregnancy.) Anyway, he said something to the effect that this is the first time an elected body has chosen to condemn pregnancy centers. Sorry, Mr. Meister, but giving women more information about a center’s services is not equivalent to condemning pregnancy centers.
Right now the bill is awaiting a decision by Mayor Sheila Dixon, who does support a woman’s right to choose.
Under the initiative, counseling centers would be required to post signs in English and Spanish stating that they do not provide or make referrals for abortion.

Keiran Havens, vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood of Maryland, which supported the bill, said that these centers will have to put up signs that let women know that any information about birth control and abortions will not be found in those centers.
The director of two pregnancy centers that would be affected said that she was disturbed by the implications in the bill. Carol Clews, executive director of the Center for Pregnancy Concerns, a non-profit anti-abortion organization that receives donations from religious groups said, “The passage of this passage of legislation may serve as serious encouragement to those who would like to our organizations saddled with more laws and restrictions.”
Sorry Carol, but there is no such thing as being too clear and straightforward with the public, unless of course it serves your purpose to be misleading.

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Women have the right to make reproductive choices over their bodies, and have historically exercised that right whether or not it is legal. If abortions are legal then of course the procedures are safe. The risks of death and injury are much higher if abortions are not legal. Let's keep them legal. And let's trust women to know what to do concerning their bodies. And so let us keep legislation away from our bodies. I don't know what tree you are referring to, but it makes no difference in the cosmic scheme of things.Often, beneath all the ranting and raving of anti-abortionists, lies a deep seated misogyny. How tragic.
Namaste,
Anna

December 4, 2009 - 1:44pm
EmpowHER Guest
Anonymous

You speak of my "violent phrase," yet the pro-choice community wants us to ignore the horrifying violence of abortion. I've read materials pushed by Planned Parenthood and they fail to mention how abortion ends life, how it stops a beating heart, and how it scars mothers and injures families.

Good never comes from evil. The GREATEST LIE of the pro-choice movement is that our children are not real until they can exist outside of the womb, and before that, they are nothing more than blobs of tissue and property of the mother. People, even little people, are not property. This country nearly self destructed over this issue in the 1860s.

In this country, half of the babies that are aborted are female, and in places like China girl babies are aborted many times over the number of boys. Who in the "right to choose" community is speaking-out against this injustice? Exactly no one, because if they did they would have to admit that unborn children have value to society.

If I'm passionate about this issue it is partly because I was nearly aborted by my teenage mother many years ago after she came into contact with a pro-abort crowd. I thank God every day for my life, and I am eternally grateful for my mother's sacrifices. How ironic that we are having this discussion at all; that I am alive to communicate with you. That you and I are both alive and having this conversation.

I a few days Christians will celebrate the birth of a child; a poor homeless child living in an occupied and hostile land, to a teenage mother and an old father, to a child born in a barn on a cold night in a world suffering from darkness, fear, and despair. To a child that that brought light to the world, and hope, and love. Thank God Mary chose the hard path and brought Jesus into our imperfect world as a gift for you and me.

Yes, this is "an extremist view," I agree, but only because the culture of death, and the sickness of Eugenics and racial superiority brought to us by the Margret Sangers of the world, are now the norm. If you want to catch-up on literature, may I suggest that you start with the founder of the pro-choice movement - who was adored and personally honored by none other than Adolf Hitler for all the values that Planned Parenthood now embodies.

A tree with bad roots won't stand the winds of time. I will pray for you.

December 4, 2009 - 11:26am

Family planning means just that - family planning. I suggest you read the literature of such centers in order to become better informed. Your violent phrase"child execution chambers" or the phrase "abortion mills" is representative of someone with an extremist view. We need less vitriol in the world.
Anna

December 3, 2009 - 10:22pm
EmpowHER Guest
Anonymous

I suppose all prolifers should also wear crosses and stars of David so that they can be avoided from the onset. This would clearly identify them as the miscreants that they are. After all there is "no such thing as being too clear and straightforward with the public, unless of course it serves your purpose to be misleading." Pehaps all "family planning" clinics should also be clearly labeled as "abortion mills" or "child execution chambers" to clarify their chief source of profit and avoid any misconceptions about what family planning really means in our society.

December 3, 2009 - 8:29pm
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