Law Against Pregnancy Care Centers Found Unconstitutional

A very timely ruling was issued on January 28th.  Federal Judge Marvin Garbis in Baltimore granted summary judgment, finding that the City of Baltimore anti-pregnancy care center law is viewpoint-based, making it unconstitutional under the First Amendment and thus unenforceable.  This now unenforceable ordinance required pregnancy care centers to include information in their ads saying they do not give out the morning after pill or make abortion referrals, and required them to post signs with these disclaimers at their entrances and in patient waiting and exam rooms.  

Given that similar laws are currently proposed in Washington state and New York City, this ruling may have a significant impact.  Pro-Life advocates who have been working overtime to oppose those laws appreciate this judicial support for their opposition to these intrusive laws.  Such laws are being pushed by NARAL and Planned Parenthood in a desperate attempt to overcome those who offer real choice and cost them abortion business in a big way.

How much money do pregnancy care centers make from the mothers they counsel about abortion alternatives?  Not only do they not charge any fees, but in most cases they offer mothers material help as well.  How much money do abortion providers make from mothers who seek abortions?  Abortions are recognized as highly profitable.

When accusations are made that pregnancy care centers are misleading and scaring women into keeping their babies, who is behind these accusations?  Almost always you will find NARAL Pro-Choice America, National Abortion Federation, and Planned Parenthood as the proponents of these claims.  Why should they have any credibility when they have a self-interest in abortion profits?  Can anyone seriously believe that these abortion proponents provide an independent third-party view of the facts surrounding the abortion decision and its implications for mother and baby?   Their biased efforts to attack pregnancy care centers confirm the effectiveness of those Pro-Life facilities.

After hearing about a Planned Parenthood director walking away from her job and joining 40 Days for Life last October, her book sounded like the type of book a pro-life person should read.  We always wonder why anyone would want to work for Planned Parenthood.

It was a real eye-opener to learn how she was duped by promises that they wanted to help women and through contraception reduce the number of abortions.   She described herself as a person who always wanted to help people.  In fact, she was studying psychology in college and wanted to be a counselor.  This volunteer job sounded like a perfect fit.

Abby describes her life as a student at Texas A & M in Bryan Texas.  She was attracted to the PP booth because of their pink color at the volunteer fair at college.  When she volunteered, the job that she was given was as an escort to bring the clients into the clinic and avoid the pro-lifers.  She quickly rose through the ranks and ultimately became the director.   Along the way she was trained to appear on TV and radio panels, always selling PP and belittling the pro-lifers outside.

Her career at PP paralleled that of Shawn Carney and his involvement at prayer vigils at the clinic and his ultimate rise to director of Coalition for Life at about the same time she became director of the clinic.  It was also the beginning of the 40 Days for Life campaigns that began at that clinic and spread throughout the country.

When Abby first became director, she resolved to build a good relationship with the pro-lifers on the other side of the fence outside of her clinic. She was determined to be pleasant and greet them and decided not to call the police about them unless they were really breaking the law.  She saw many different approaches and got to personally know the people who demonstrated at her clinic. She thought they just didn’t understand that she was really helping women at the clinic.

The turning point in her conversion was the demand by the regional directors to keep improving the bottom line – the profits.  The only way to do that was to increase the number of abortions because that was where the money was.  She was shocked and fought with her superiors about the increases in abortion.  Then the announcement that PP was building a mega abortion center pulled the veil from her eyes.

After assisting at an abortion by guiding the ultrasound probe, it was clear that she couldn’t continue to work at the clinic.  Saying to herself, “How could I have missed seeing this for what it is?” she left the clinic and walked into the arms of the pro-lifers at the Coalition for Life office across the street. 

Two recent articles raise new concerns about the accuracy of “brain death” as a reliable method to determine true death.  Given dependence on use of “brain death” as a means to successfully obtain functioning donated vital organs for transplant, these articles offer new warnings to anyone considering the decision to register as an organ donor.

A special report authored by Mercedes Arzu Wilson and published by Life Decisions International presents many historical facts about the questionable biological concept of "brain death." This report includes information regarding a number of meetings and conferences that have been held to evaluate the merits of "brain death."   It is not reassuring that many advocates in favor of "brain death" at these meetings have a serious conflict of interest because of their own involvement in the organ transplant industry.

Even more unsettling are quotes clearly indicating that professionals who support "brain death" fully recognize that patients declared "brain dead" are not truly dead.  Wilson wrote, "In fact, moments before the conference began one of the presenters admitted to me that 'brain dead' donors are alive, but since their 'quality of life' is so poor it is better for their organs to be used to save someone else's life."

Consistent with that observation, proponents of organ transplantation Dr. Franklin G. Miller and Dr. Robert D. Truog published an article in the Hastings Center Report of December 2, 2008, "Rethinking the Ethics of Vital Organ Donation," admitting that "brain dead" donors are alive and all restrictions should be removed in order to obtain more organs for transplantation.

In the second article, A prominent American professor of Catholic medical ethics has said that in “brain death” criteria there is no “moral certitude” that a patient is really dead.  Professor E. Christian Brugger, a Senior Fellow of Ethics at the Culture of Life Foundation, quoted Pope John Paul II, who told a congress on organ transplants that death is “a single event consisting in the total disintegration of that unity and integrated whole that is the personal self.”

“Although we cannot identify the event directly, we can identify biological signs consequent upon the loss of that unity,” said Brugger.  But according to many experts, those biological signs are not present in “brain death” cases.

Brugger references the research of D. Alan Shewmon, which, he says, “demonstrates conclusively that the bodies of some who are rightly diagnosed as suffering whole brain death express integrative bodily unity to a fairly high degree.”

In fact, he says, “brain dead” patients on ventilator support “have been shown to undergo respiration at the cellular level … assimilate nutrients … fight infection and foreign bodies … maintain homeostasis … eliminate, detoxify and recycle cell waste throughout the body; maintain body temperature; grow proportionately; heal wounds … exhibit cardiovascular and hormonal stress responses to noxious stimuli such as incisions; gestate a fetus … and even undergo puberty.”

All of this, says Brugger, would seem to indicate that “brain death” fails to meet Pope John Paul’s definition of death as “the total disintegration of that unity and integrated whole that is the personal self.”