Lightning and Vultures

The Vulture Culture that feasts on the suffering of abortions gone wrong will be sooo disappointed. The cause of death of the woman trumpeted as 'killed' by Dr Carhart is natural causes.

A 29-year-old woman died of natural causes after visiting an abortion clinic in Montgomery County and suffering a rare complication related to childbirth, according to an initial finding by the Maryland medical examiner’s office.

The complication, which occurred when amniotic fluid was pushed into the woman’s bloodstream, can occur during or after abortions, natural deliveries or Caesarean sections.

An expert, who obviously could not comment on this specific case, said:

Amniotic fluid embolisms are rare, and the medical profession doesn’t have a good handle on how they affect a patient’s body, Eisinger said. “It’s kind of the obstetric equivalent of getting hit by lightning,” he said. “It is usually unexpected, sudden and often fatal.”

And since the risk of death from abortion in the developed world is about 0.6 per 100,000 procedures, it may well be less common than death by lightning strike.

Worldwide, it is a very different story, with an estimated 70,000 women a year dying from unsafe, usually illegal abortions.

Funny, we never hear a peep about those from the fetus fetishists. They do get reported regularly. One doesn't have to look very hard. Here's one from today in Ghana.

An attempt by a 17-year-old Junior High School (JHS) student at Atwedie in the Asante-Akim South District, to abort a four-month pregnancy went tragic as it led to her untimely death.
. . .
An autopsy showed that she died from an illegal abortion.

Will the finding in the recent case shut the fetus fetishists up about this poor woman?

Nope. They just pivot, now filing a 'formal complaint' about Dr Carhart with the medical board.

So the violation of this woman and her family's privacy and the exploitation of their grief continues.

The Christian Taliban Strikes Again

Fetus fetishists revel in any injury or complication associated with abortion. Almost daily, LifeShite and others like it crow about 'another' ambulance reported -- by one of their clinic harassers of course -- taking someone to hospital from a clinic.

They dance in the streets when a clinic is investigated for any cause, often at their own instigation.

They worship predatory quacks as anti-heroes.

But what really gets them creaming their Depends is a death that can be linked to abortion.

There's been one such recently in the US but what they are doing with this one is utterly despicable -- even for them.

Here are the facts so far. A 29-year-old woman was 33 weeks pregnant when something went catastrophically wrong.

I can say 'catastrophically wrong' because this was very much a wanted pregnancy. A name had been chosen, nursery decorated, and a online gift registry set up.

How she got to Dr Carhart is unclear but understandable because since the assassination of Dr Tiller he is one of the very few specialists left in the US who can and will perform a late-term abortion.

Of course, Dr Carhart has been relentlessly targetted by the same domestic-terrorism enablers who helped murder Dr Tiller. I imagine his clinic is under constant surveillance.

So, something went wrong with the pregnancy, then something else went terribly wrong and the woman and wanted fetus both died.

That's about all we should know about this tragedy until it is investigated properly.

Except it is not all we know.

More than 150 demonstrators gathered near the clinic Monday to step up their efforts to draw national attention to the case, asserting that the clinic’s leader, LeRoy Carhart, was directly responsible for the woman’s death and that she had come to his office for a multi-day abortion procedure when she was 33 weeks pregnant.
. . .
On Monday, opponents of abortion carried signs with statements such as “A fetus is a child” and “Life is not a choice.” One demonstrator held up a large photograph of the woman who died, identifying her by name next to the abbreviation “R.I.P.”

How did they know her name, her circumstances, the procedure?

Jill Fucking Stanek found out. (No link. I have redacted the name, for all the bloody good that will do now.)

I did not report on the death last week of a patient of late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart because I did not have corroboration.

I now do.
. . .
I confirmed the identities of the victims through two sources. After a name ID was received from an impeccable informant, sidewalk
counselors at the abortion clinic positively identified NAME’s obituary photo. NAME's obituary also states she “passed away suddenly.”

Following is the information and timeline pieced together through those and other sources. Operation Rescue’s Cheryl Sullenger is to be commended for her work exposing this terrible tragedy.

The self-congratulatory post included a link to the damn gift registry, since taken down. But Stanek gleefully presents a screen-cap she'd taken, no doubt anticipating that a grieving family would desperately want that sort of reminder to disappear pronto.

One sentence is given to the reason.

Approximately two weeks ago NAME learned her daughter suffered from fetal anomalies.

Oh, just some pesky little anomalies that NAME happened to learn about -- on a whim, no doubt.

Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak writes.

Lots of people are opposed to the kind of late-term abortion that preceded the death of a woman in Maryland last week. I understand that.

But everyone should be opposed to the blatantly illegal violation of her privacy and the exploitation of her death by protesters using it to make their point.

Her name and photo have appeared on protest signs, in blogs and in newspapers.
. . .
[At the protest. . .] “It was a perfectly healthy young woman that died,” said Michael Martelli, executive director of the Maryland Coalition for Life, an antiabortion advocacy group.

And how would you know that, Mr. Martelli? Do you know her?

No, he doesn’t, he told me.

Well, silly Ms Dvorak. Doesn't she know that any fetus fetishist is far more knowledgeable than specialist OB/GYNs?

And now as Ms Dvorak says, the dead woman's photo and name and circumstances, as well as her family's, are being bandied about by a bunch of gore-loving panty-sniffers.

The scumsuckers have massively violated the Privacy Rule of something called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). But the office that deals with complaints is backed up and 'has not yet taken any enforcement actions against hospitals, doctors, insurers or anyone else for rule violations'. So, good luck with that, potential complainants.

The scumsuckers are crudely manipulating a private tragedy for their own purposes. They are merrily cloaking their joy in glurgey statements of faux condolences. They are rejoicing at finding yet another sad, sad case to twist and inflate and misrepresent.

They show themselves to be what they are: merciless haters who wish death on women who don't comply with their edicts.

In fact, just like the other Taliban.

Clue for the Clueless

So, how did Operation ReScum get all that information for its nationwide anti-abortion hit list?

From: Philadelphia Weekly

Last year, in the wake of the arrest of Kermit Gosnell, Operation Rescue came to town. They met in the basement of St. Agnes Church in West Chester. As PW reported in March, the militant anti-abortion organization was there recruiting volunteers to gather doctors’ names and schedules by pretending to be mothers of daughters who were seeking abortions. Volunteers were told they’d find it surprisingly easy to lie, and that the Holy Spirit would tell them what to say. It was described as playing a fun detective game.

Whee! Let's play 'Target Doctors and Clinic Staff for Assassination'! It'll be FUN!

They could make a board game out of it.

'I got it, I got it! Is it Paul Hill with a shotgun in the parking lot?'

'No, no, I got it! Is it Scott Roeder with a handgun in the church lobby?'

'Wait, I got it. Is it James Kopp with a sniper rifle in the kitchen?'

No, the next assassin won't be any of those. It will be a new player. Emboldened and enabled by these domestic terrorists.

Nationwide Anti-Abortion Hit List

Rachel Maddow catches us up on two recent Fetus Lobby moves in the Excited States -- both terrifying.




I won't link to Operation Re-Scum, but here's a description from Ms. Magazine.

Operation Rescue, an extremist anti-abortion group, has launched a website - abortiondocs.org - which lists the photographs and addresses of abortion providers, as well as maps to find their places of business. The website, which describes itself as the "largest collection of documents on America's abortion cartel," aims to list every abortion provider in the country.

Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and co-founder of the National Clinic Access Project, stated, "What causes us real concern is fear of where this could be headed. It opens the possibility that some so-called 'grass-roots activist,' who does believe in the use of violence, will be able to use this as a tool for stalking doctors, which has happened."

Rachel Maddow remarked on her show on MSNBC last night that website is Operation Rescue's attempt to take individual WANTED posters, which she described as "a tried and true means of intimidation for the anti-abortion movement," to a national level through the web. She stated, this is "an extremist movement with a history of violence taking something that is arguably criminal and trying to make it more mainstream and national."

And oh yeah, Dr LeRoy Carhart -- the subject of an OScum 'research project' -- is on the list.

Rachel also brings us up to date on the most recent Looney Tunes ReThuglican debate, sponsored by Personhood USA.

Here at DJ!, we've written about the Humpty Dumpty Initiative a few times. These are the nutbars who want a fertilized human egg declared a 'person', thus not only outlawing all abortions, but endangering birth control, emergency contraception, and in-vitro techniques. Also possibly criminalizing miscarriage and spreading the application of child endangerment laws back to second 1.

Basically, you know, shoving the government up every uterus in Merka.

Yabbut, I hear you saying, this dealie recently failed a referendum in ultra-conservative Mississippi, didn't it? So, like, there's nothing to worry about, just a bunch of nutters, right?

Wrong. Rachel points out that while Mississippi -- arguably the most conservative state down there -- rejected this insanity, EVERY SINGLE ONE of the ReThug candidates has endorsed it.

Let me repeat that -- EVERY SINGLE ONE.

There you have it, fans of sense and reason. This is the atmosphere into which a nationwide, online, anti-abortion Hit List has been injected.

Someone -- a doctor, nurse, clinic worker, patient, bystander -- is going to be killed. And it probably won't be long now.

h/t RH Reality Check

I Come Not To Praise Tiller But To Bury Him

I'm definitely not sure what the slander/libel laws are in the US, but I can hope someone gets out a legal brickbat and wings it in the direction of Troy Newman of Operation Rescue in the US.

This upstanding defender of the pre-born has apparently boldly gone where many forced pregnancy cultists have gone before, down the 'free speech' route of Lyinggggg forrrrr Jesusssssusssussssss in his visit to an uncritical media platform. He appears to be attempting pre-emptive damage control before an HBO series airs on Dr. George Tiller, the physician brutally murdered by a Christian fundamentalist terrorist for medical dedication to providing women safe, legal, pregnancy termination services.

I also love this nerfball question from the 'interviewer'.

"Mefferd: When you talk about these clinics, and we’ve seen this so many times before, that these abortion clinics are just gross, they’re dirty, they’re poorly maintained, why do you think that is? I mean, they seem to have enough money coming in from abortions to be able to get some Clorox, why are they so gross?"

The rest of the piece is here, tagged by the iron-stomached site, Rightwing Watch.

These fetus exploiters are blase in their moral turpidity, false-witnessing their faces off and then fantasizing even more as their faces flop about on the floor. This is the 'free speech' their Canadian fellow travellers long to have, the ability to completely and deliberately misrepresent reality to the public forum, smug in their certainty they have power and influence enough to avoid repercussion.

And Brutroyus is an honorable man, here to defend the pre-Caesarean against the ravages of ambitious selfish women preternaturally lusting for the Imperial feminist purple.

Shrieeek!!!! It's all in the spin.

Blob Blogging Wingnut often re-posts propaganda pieces from Lies-Site at HER place.

Facts about public events and occurrences tend to get varnished, twisted and distorted by The Fetus©™ fetishists in their attempt to provoke outrage and to get a good chorus of shriEEEks going.

That nifty little tactic was certainly on display as the zygote zealots milked the shooting death of Jim Pouillon as much as they could. SUZIE CAPS-ON even promoted the notion that Pouillon should be nominated for sainthood. Umm, yeah. Right up there with the white-washing canonization of Pius XII, it would seem.

Here's a recent example that occurred at Southwestern Women's Options.

The basic elements of the story are: a couple accompanying their adolescent daughter to a women's clinic were called out by anti-abortion activists. The patient and her parents went inside the building. The father then came out to tell the activists that he would act forcefully to protect his daughter and wife if they were approached again when they left the clinic. The activists claimed that he threatened to shoot one of them. Operation Rescue volunteers phoned police and said that they saw what they assumed to be a gun. The police arrived, took the man into custody and because they could not find a weapon upon him - as Operation Rescue volunteers claimed - proceeded to search the premises of the clinic. Firearms were eventually found locked in the vehicle owned by the father. No charges have been filed, pending a completed investigation of the event.

Compare these versions of the event, fed by Operation Rescue truthiness. It starts with the headline. In fact the father was not 'arrested', nor charged.

Here is a reality-based account.

My prediction is that Operation Rescue will exploit this tactic - claiming that they have been threatened by people accompanying patients to clinics, or by patients themselves. Given the US anti-abortion movement's history in promoting and supporting homicidal actions against medical staff, police have zero tolerance for any kind of perceived or real threat of violence around Planned Parenthood and other women's clinics. I expect that zygote zealots will report that they thought they saw a gun/knife/bomb and claim they were threatened in order to get the police to sweep down upon the location.

How many times will they pull such stunts before they get charged with mischief and sent the bill for abusing police resources?

Break out the champers!

Operation Rescue "completely out of money".

The Wichita-based anti-abortion group Operation Rescue says the recession has dramatically hurt fundraising and as a result it's nearly out of money.

President Troy Newman sent out a plea for help to supporters last night, saying he had to borrow money to pay for the letter. "This is the worst financial crisis we've ever faced," he writes.

Of course, Newman also promises that should OP survive, it's about to launch "the most ambitious and most significant project" in its history.

Go to the link for the whole glurgey, whiney letter.

He says Operation Scumbag may have to close.

And he blames it on the recession?

I'd venture the truth is that many, many of his former supporters came to their senses suddenly and realized exactly what their hard-earned dough was paying for.

Domestic terrorism.

Maybe enabling the assassination of Dr George Tiller wasn't such a shit-hot idea, eh, Troy?

Push-Back Continued

I'm liking Dr LeRoy Carhart more the more I learn about him.

He's not taking Operation Re-Skew's crap lying down. Far from it.

Adding to this weekend's humiliation of the anti-abortion terrorist-enablers, Dr Carhart invited a local tv station to tour his clinic.

The anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue claims four past employees at the clinic say his staff is unqualified and the clinic has unclean conditions. "We've already identified several things that this clinic is violating state statues and we're going to be meeting with the attorney general to close this abortion clinic down once and for all," said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue.

Carhart calls the claims outright lies. He shows us where tools are sterolized, the ultra-sound room, and pharmacy that's under lock and key.

Since the murder of his friend and abortion doctor, Dr. George Tiller; he's even more aware of the danger that comes with his job. "I think about security a lot more than the average person," said Bellevue Abortion Clinic Dr. LeRoy Carhart. But he says that will never stop him from fighting for what he feels is right. Performing late-term abortions for woman he says face gut-wrenching circumstances. "We're not going to allow them to deny us our choice," Carhart said.

(I expect those tools are sterilized, too.)

You go, Dr Carhart.

Push-Back UPDATE

About that push-back at Dr Carhart's clinic:

The rally in Bellevue came nearly three months to the day after Tiller's killing. A massive police presence, including heavily armed rapid-response teams, monitored the demonstrators. Streets were blocked off, and police kept both sides separated with buffer zones in between.

Abortion rights supporters outnumbered their opponents nearly 2 to 1.

Operation Rescue drove in two of their so-called Truth Trucks, delivery trucks with giant billboards of dismembered fetuses on the sides. The vehicles parked in a designated area outside the clinic to gasps from the women's rights groups. Police used sniffer dogs to make sure the vehicles did not have any explosives before allowing them to park.

Megan Belleavia called the trucks abortion "pornography" that shouldn't be allowed. "You can't stand out in the street corner and show pictures of a bare-breasted woman without getting in trouble, so why should they be able to show that?" she said.

Two to one. Excellent.

In the comments here, JJ links to Amanda Marcotte's piece, 'They push the hardest on abortion because we give the most on it'.

We've got to stop letting the batshit crazies intimidate us normal, sane people.

Push-Back Time

Operation Scumbag is now targetting Dr LeRoy Carhart. They've planned a demonstration for this weekend at Dr Carhart's clinic.

But pro-choice people are pushing back. Blogger Kevin Gosztola is there, reporting and Twittering. His blogpost includes a link to this Maddow interview with Dr Carhart.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I'm nowhere near Nebraska, but if I were I'd turn this middle-aged feminist body out again in defense of women's rights.

ADDED: I found this link to ProChoice America's rally for Dr Carhart at JJ's.

If I were a prayin' woman. . .

I'd be praying for Dr LeRoy Carhart. A few days ago, JJ, the unrepentant old hippie, blogged about Dr Carhart, a very brave man.

Well, it seems he'll have to be even braver. Inscrutably, his protection by federal marshalls has been withdrawn.

Despite mounting threats to the clinic--and potentially to the life--of Nebraska Dr. Leroy Carhart, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has removed the federal marshals earlier charged with protecting him.

Dr. Carhart lost his federal marshal protection two weeks ago, much to the alarm of pro-choice leaders, leaving him vulnerable at a time when anti-choice violence has been escalating across the country, and when Carhart himself has been openly targeted by groups such as Operation Rescue, which is calling for protests at his clinic later this month. In addition, members of the Army of God, an organization that promotes the use of violence against providers of abortion care, and glorifies those who commit acts of murder, are also targetting Dr. Carhart.

Women's rights and health groups are now working strenuously to ensure that the DOJ restores protection by federal marshals for Dr. Carhart and to urge the DOJ and the FBI to investigate Tiller's murder and other strategies used by these groups as part of a pattern of domestic terrorism.

Officials at the Department of Justice could not be reached for comment this weekend. RH Reality Check will be following up with them on Monday, August 10th.

Just WTF are they thinking? Dr Carhart is Operation Scumbag's target, just like, exactly like Dr. Tiller was.

And as the volume of nuttiness and the threats of violence are rising even higher in the Excited States, they withdraw his protection???!!!!! Now????!!!!

Roeder + Operation Rescue = Assassination

In a longish piece in the Kansas City Star, accused domestic terrorist Scott Roeder addresses several topics, including his enablers:

In a phone interview Friday, Roeder said he was upset at the president of Operation Rescue, Troy Newman, who had condemned the killing and said his organization had nothing to do with Roeder.

“He said that I never was a member and I never contributed any money,” Roeder said. “Well, my gosh, I’ve got probably a thousand dollars worth of receipts, at least, from the money I’ve donated to him.”

Roeder said he wrote Newman a letter from jail.

“I told him, ‘You better get your story straight because my lawyer said it’d be good for me to show that I was supporting a pro-life organization.’ ”

Newman said Friday he didn’t believe Roeder gave money to his group.

“We have a database, but I haven’t been able to find him in the database,” he said. “If he did (donate), we have probably over the past 10 years over 50,000 people who have contributed to us.”

Well, no, Newman, because your database like your website has been scrubbed.

But I understand that the FBI has some pretty smart tech-dudes and dudettes who could unscrub the database to prove conspiracy charges against you and your organization in Dr Tiller's assassination.

Bonus: The New York Times has a comprehensive piece on Dr Tiller's persecution.

Added: His preliminary hearing is scheduled for this Tuesday.

More Moral Equivalency

Further to the earth-shattering news about a man getting pissed off at a fetus fetishist's gory sign in his kid's face, there's been a heinous attack on Operation Rescue!

Here's the press release put out by OR.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman heard noise outside his office and observed the assailant through the security cameras attempting to gain access to the roof. Newman rushed outside and confronted the man, who then tried to punch Newman. When that failed, he flung his bicycle at Newman then fled the scene.

Attacked with a bicycle!!!11!!!1! What will these evul supporters of legal abortion not do??!!!1!!1!11

What horrible damage was done, you ask?

From the press release again:

One security camera was stolen causing an estimated $1,000 in damage. No one was hurt in the fracas.

3. . . 2 . . . 1

Shriieeeeeeeeeeek!

UPDATE: In the comments, JJ says that there is now a video up at OR's website. I'm not going to link, but you can find it. The vid is short and lame.

Anti-Abortion CodeSpeak Update

From LifeShite (emphasis mine):

With Nebraska-based late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart saying he will take the place of George Tiller to do the lions share of the controversial abortions in Kansas, the pro-life group that was a leading Tiller watchdog is putting together a new research project focused on Carhart.

Operation Rescue told LifeNews.com on Thursday that it is asking women who have had abortions at the hand of Carhart to contact it.

"We are conducting a research project and are encouraging women who are ready to share their stories about their abortion experiences with LeRoy Carhart to contact us as soon as possible," OR staffer Cheryl Sullenger told LifeNews.com. "Of course, all communications with us will be held in strictest confidence."

(Would that be convicted anti-abortion terrorist Cheryl Sullenger? The one whose name and phone number were found in the car of the person charged with Dr Tiller's murder? Yes.)

So, now 'research project' = 'hate campaign' > 'death threats' > more anti-abortion terrorism.

Votey-Vote-Vote

Via PZ Myers, a chance to vote on late abortion!

At PBS you can read/hear a debate between Operation Rescue president and anti-abortion terrorist enabler Troy Newman and Cristina Page of RH Reality Check.

PZ reports that Troy says he's winning. Troy also tells his readers that voting will be open until June 29.

So, um, if you've got a minute over the next couple of weeks, well, you know what to do.

Oh, and about winning, here's the score at the moment:


UPDATE ('bout half an hour later): Wow. When the Pharyngulans get on it, watch out.

Innocent!

Dr George Tiller found innocent of trumped-up charges in his decades-long persecution.

In a trial watched closely by those on both sides of the abortion debate, Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas physician accused of performing 19 illegal late-term abortions, was found innocent today. The six-person jury, three men and three women, deliberated for less than an hour.

So it's over, right?

Um. No.

"We are extremely disappointed," said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a Presbyterian minister and pacifist who has worked with Operation Rescue. "We were thrilled that George Tiller even went to trial. This will not stop us at all."

It's NEVER over for the fetus fetishists.

What the F****** F*** …

are the furious fundamentalists, fetus fetishists and/or far-right fanatics doing nowadays in the Excited States of America?

The latest tactic in Operation Rescue’s never-ending and ever-escalating campaign of legalistic and illegal harassment is to target individual people staffing Dr Tiller’s clinic for violence prayer by publishing their photos and personal information. From ChristianNewsWire:

Operation Rescue has released the most up-to-date list of abortion clinic workers employed by George R. Tiller at his late-term abortion mill, Women’s Health Care Services, in Wichita, Kansas. The list includes twenty-two people, including three out-of-state abortionists who travel to Kansas to do abortions, including late-term procedures that are illegal in their home states. “We are releasing this list of abortion workers in order to expose them to the community, and to elicit prayers for their repentance,” said Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger.

“As Christians, we are concerned about them as people, and understand that sometimes it takes ‘tough love’ to help someone see the destructive path they are taking, so that they can make the
changes necessary to have a better life,” Sullenger said. “Most people who quit the abortion industry tell us that they are relieved to be out of that business, and say that leaving improved their lives.” …

Today’s abortion worker list is in the form of a photo gallery with captions telling the public a little
about each worker.

It appears Operation Rescue is expanding its murderous stranglehold urging its followers to reach out and touch pray for the staff of Dr Tiller’s clinic. Birth Pangs has blogged about Dr Tiller here, here, here and here.

Here’s one well-informed perspective on his medical practice. Read more.

First posted at Birth Pangs.