StemCell Therapy

* As of February 1, 2016:

* In the state of Washington, it is against the law to apply a tattoo to anyone under the age of 18.

* In the state of New Jersey, it is against the law to engage in a body piercing of anyone under the age of 18 without written consent from his or her parent or legal guardian.

* In the state of California, it is against the law for anyone under the age of 18 to use a tanning machine.

* In Washington, New Jersey, and California, it is legal for a girl of any age to get an abortion without her parents consent or knowledge.

* Five Gallup polls conducted from 1992 through 2011 found that 69-74% of Americans favor a law requiring women under 18 to get parental consent for any abortion. Opposition to this view ranged from 23-28%.

* A 2005 CBS poll found 80% support for requiring that at least one parent be told before a girl under 18 years of age could have an abortion. Opposition to this view was 17%.

* A 2009 Pew poll found 76% support for requiring that women under the age of 18 get the consent of at least one parent before they are allowed to have an abortion. Opposition to this view was 19%.

* In 1996, Barack Obamas Illinois Senate campaign completed a candidate questionnaire and then resubmitted it with amended answers on the following day. In response to the question, Do you support parental consent/notification for minors seeking abortions? the answers were:

* When these questionnaires were published by Politico.com during the 2008 Presidential contest, Obamas campaign asserted that a staffer filled them out and some of the responses did not and do not reflect Obamas views.

* An investigation by Politico found that one of the questionnaires contains written notes that appear to be in Obamas hand, and the other questionnaire has a cover sheet indicating that Obama supplied the answers in a face-to-face interview at the house of a board member of the organization that issued the questionnaire. The board member has confirmed that Obama personally sat for this interview. In response to these revelations, Obamas presidential campaign wrote:

* On a 2001 vote in the Illinois Senate for a parental notification bill, Barack Obama voted Present.

* Illinois Senate rules state that a majority of those elected (30 Senators) must vote in favor of a bill for it to pass. Thus, a vote of Present has the same result as a vote of No.

* With regard to Obama voting Present on this and other abortion-related bills, Pam Sutherland, the president and CEO of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council stated:

* In response to a 2004 candidate questionnaire that asked, Do you support parental notification or consent to obtain an abortion? Barack Obamas U.S. Senate campaign answered:

* The 2001 parental notification bill on which Obama voted Present had bypass provisions for sexual abuse, neglect, physical abuse, and cases where notification would not be in the best interests of the minor.

* In response to a 2007 candidate questionnaire asking if minors should be required to seek their parents consent before having an abortion, Barack Obamas presidential campaign did not explicitly answer the question and stated that:

* As of 2008, all of the 35 states with a parental consent or notification law in effect has a bypass provision that permits exceptions in various circumstances such as when notifying a parent not be in a minors best interests. This is also the case with a Congressional bill that Obama filibustered. Six of the seven states with a parental consent or notification law blocked by a court order or ruling have similar bypass provisions. The one exception is New Mexico, which has a 1969 law on its books that the state attorney general ruled unenforceable in 1990.

* The Democratic Party Platform makes no explicit reference to parental consent or notification laws. The Republican Party Platform supports parental notification laws and makes no explicit reference to parental consent laws.

* On September 16, 1988, 17-year-old Rebecca Suzanne Bell of Indianapolis, Indiana was admitted to a hospital with pneumonia and suffered a fatal cardiopulmonary arrest that night. During her autopsy, evidence of recent pregnancy with recent partial abortion was discovered. The cause of death listed on the autopsy report is Septic Abortion with Pneumonia and the manner of death as Undetermined. According to Merriam-Websters Medical Dictionary, a septic abortion is a spontaneous or induced abortion associated with bacterial infection and pneumonia is a disease of the lungs that is caused especially by infection.

* Indiana had (and has) a parental consent law in effect. According to a receipt from a local Planned Parenthood and Beckys friend Heather Clark, the two of them visited Planned Parenthood, where it was suggested that Becky travel 100 miles to Kentucky to circumvent the Indiana law.

* Heather Clark stated that Becky chose not to tell her parents about the pregnancy because she was recently hospitalized with a drug problem and thought that they would kick her out of the house if they knew she was pregnant. Ms. Clark also stated that after she and Becky went to Planned Parenthood, Becky wavered about having an abortion and considered running away and putting the baby up for adoption.

* The county coroner (who did not perform the autopsy and is now deceased) told Beckys parents that she had died from pneumonia and the source of the infection was an illegal abortion performed with unsterile instruments. Her parents came to blame Beckys death on Indianas parental consent law. This led to media attention and Beckys parents embarking on a speaking tour of 23 states with an advocacy group to lobby against parental involvement laws.

* Since this time, Becky Bells case has been cited as an argument against parental consent laws on 60 Minutes, ABC News, CNNs Larry King Live, in the magazines Seventeen, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, an American Civil Liberties Union pamphlet, and an original HBO movie named Public Law 106: The Becky Bell Story. In the last three years, this argument has been repeated in at least 13 different publications including a legal journal. When a parental notification law was put on the ballot in Oregon in 1990, polls found opposition to it at 22%. After Beckys parents toured the state appearing at rallies and on television and talk shows, the measure was defeated with 52% voting against it.

* Around the time that the Beckys parents appeared on 60 Minutes, James A. Miller, the research director of an organization dedicated to promot[ing] and defend[ing] the sanctity of life, corresponded several times with Dr. Jesse Giles, the author of the autopsy report and one of two pathologists who signed it. In an editorial published in the Baltimore Evening Sun and in a press release, Miller wrote that Giles said:

* When contacted by Just Facts, Dr. Giles refused to answer any questions.

* The other pathologist who signed the autopsy report was Dr. John Pless. He supervised the autopsy, as Dr. Giles was a fellow in training at the time. In a 1990 newspaper article, Dr. Pless is quoted as stating, I cannot prove she had anything but a spontaneous abortion [i.e., miscarriage], but that he found evidence of infection in Beckys reproductive system, and thus it seemed probable that an induced abortion was performed.

* The description of the reproductive system in the autopsy report contains no mention of an infection.

* When contacted by Just Facts, Pless confirmed his view as quoted above and stated that the same micro-organism that caused the pneumonia was cultured in the uterus and the lung. When Just Facts pointed out the autopsy report contains a list of Specimens for Culture that does not include the uterus, Pless said his memory may be faulty, but the only possible source of the infection was the uterus because there was no upper airway disease - so the only possibility was spread from the uterus.

* When Just Facts informed Dr. Pless that:

* The HBO movie cited above shows Becky going with a friend to obtain an illegal abortion. All primary sources researched for this case contain no testimony or documentation of such an event. This includes the coroners report, autopsy report, Beckys mothers written account, and an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in which the reporter quotes Beckys father and her closest friend Heather Clark. Ms. Clark, who accompanied Becky to Planned Parenthood, told the reporter that Becky did not have an induced abortion. She also said that when she visited Becky (four days after she had gotten sick and the night before she passed on), Becky asked her to schedule an abortion in Louisville, Kentucky for two days later.

Events in the week prior to Beckys death (as reported in the coroners report, autopsy report, Beckys mothers written account, and Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Sunday 12:45 AM

Becky comes home from a party and says she thinks someone put cocaine or speed in her drink and that she feels like shes got the flu like Dad.

Tuesday

Becky faints.

Wednesday

Becky stays home from school and develops a 104 fever. Her parents try to take her to the doctor, but Becky resists and they relent.

Thursday PM

Heather Clark visits Becky, and Becky asks her to schedule an abortion in Kentucky on Saturday.

Friday

Becky starts bleeding and tells her Mom. Becky agrees to go a doctor, who diagnoses her with pneumonia and sends her to the hospital, arriving at 4 PM.

Friday PM

The doctor says to Beckys family: We dont know if we can save the baby. 11:29 PM: Becky passes on.

* In March 1989, six months after Becky Bells death, 16-year-old Erica Kae Richardson of Cheltenham, Maryland was assisted by her aunt in obtaining an abortion without her mothers consent or knowledge. Ericas aunt, a registered nurse, first took her to Washington Hospital Center, which would not perform the abortion because the pregnancy was 19 weeks along. She then took her to the Metropolitan Womens Center in Laurel, where Dr. Gene Crawford carried out the abortion, puncturing her uterus in the process. Erica died several hours later from rupture of [her] lower uterus and cervix with complications, including hemorrhage into the pelvic cavity surrounding the uterus and air embolism.

* The current Maryland notification law allows abortion providers to bypass notifying a parent if, in their opinion, the minor is capable of giving informed consent to an abortion. The law also stipulates that abortion providers cannot be prosecuted or sued for failing to notify a girls parents.

* A 2000 U.S. Department of Justice study of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies in twelve states from 1991-1996, found that the incidence of forcible rape peaked at the ages of 14 and 15.

* A 1987 survey of U.S. woman aged 18-22, found that of those who had intercourse at 15 years of age or younger, 40% had been forced to have sex against their will or were raped.

* A 2006 U.S. Department of Justice study found that 58% of female forcible rape victims were raped before their 18th birthday.

* Arkansas law requires written consent of a parent (not a step-parent) before an abortion is performed upon a female who is less than 18 years of age. In 2006, a 15-year-old Arkansas girl accused her 41-year-old stepfather of raping her, getting her pregnant, forcing her to have an abortion in Illinois (where there is no parental consent or notification law in effect), and continuing to rape her afterwards.

* The girls claim that she was taken to an abortion clinic in Granite City, Illinois was corroborated by a photo of her stepfathers car at this facility. He was arrested, charged with a dozen counts of rape and committed suicide before trial.

* In 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would have made it illegal to take a minor across state lines to circumvent state laws that require parental involvement in a minors abortion. It required that abortion providers in states without parental involvement laws give at least 24 hours notice to a parent before performing an abortion on a minor who resides in another state. This provision included exceptions for parental abuse, neglect, and if the physical health of the minor is endangered. 93% of Republicans voted for it and 71% of Democrats voted against it. (Click for a record of how each Representative voted.)

* After being approved by the House, the bill was sent to the Senate where it was blocked by a filibuster conducted by 37 Democrats, 4 Republicans, and 1 Independent. Participants in the filibuster included Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Robert Menendez, and Susan Collins. (Click for a record of how each Senator voted.)

* A sexual relationship between a 22-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl is illegal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. All states have laws requiring healthcare and other workers who interact with children in a professional capacity to report suspected cases of child abuse, which in 29 states and the District of Columbia, explicitly includes a sexual relationship between a 22-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl.

* In 2002, Life Dynamics, an organization dedicated to ending legal abortion, phoned more than 800 Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation abortion clinics and offices. In these calls, a woman from Life Dynamics told workers at these facilities that she was 13-years-old, had been impregnated by her 22-year-old boyfriend, and wanted to get an abortion to hide the situation from her parents.

* In more than 90% of the phone calls, the Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation workers did not act to report the matter.

* Some workers encouraged the caller to come in for the abortion and lie about the age of the person who impregnated her.

* Some workers told the caller that they were required to report the situation, but werent going to do so.

* In states that have parental notification laws, some workers told the caller to find a person who was old enough to impersonate one of her parents and have them sign the required paperwork. In one state that requires a notarized signature from a parent, a worker told the caller that the facility had a notary public who would notarize a fraudulent signature for her.

* After Life Dynamics released the recordings, Planned Parenthood issued the following statement:

* A Connecticut TV station (WTIC Fox 61) scrutinized the recordings of the phone calls to the abortion clinics in Connecticut. They found that the dial tones recorded on the tapes matched the phone numbers of the facilities, the names of the people on the tapes matched the names of the workers at the facilities, and the content of the conversations matched what was reported by Life Dynamics.

* In briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court regarding a Minnesota parental consent law, the American Psychological Association asserted that the law should be struck down on the grounds that:

most adolescents are competent to make informed decisions about important life situations.

* In a brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court regarding a death penalty sentence in Missouri for a person who committed a capital murder at the age of 17, the American Psychological Association asserted that crimes committed by minors should never be subject to the death penalty on the grounds that:

Adolescent decision-makers on average are less future-oriented and less likely to consider properly the consequences of their actions.

In comparison with adults, studies show that adolescents are less likely to consider alternative courses of action, understand the perspective of others, or restrain impulses. In a study of more than 1,000 adolescents and adults it was not until age 19 that this development of responsible decisionmaking plateaued.

See the original post here:
Abortion - Just Facts

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