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Iowans Continue to Voice
Strong Opposition to Abortionist LeRoy Carhart
Part One of Four By Dave Andrusko Editor's note. Good evening and thanks for taking time to read TN&V and National Right to Life News Today. Part Two looks at TIME’s Person of the Year and what that means for our Movement. Part Three reminds you there is still time to register for The National Teens for Life Summit. Part Four offers the encouraging news that “Adult Stem Cells from Cord Blood Enhance Aging Brain Cells.” Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), we talk about a major European court abortion judgment. In addition David Prentice reports on the remarkable recovery of a severely injured animal using adult stem cells. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.
The response to the more than 150 people who poured into The Council Bluff City Council chambers Monday was that there was little the Council could do. Although he said he hopes abortionist LeRoy Carhart does not open a clinic in his city, Mayor Tom Hanafan added that “the council's hands are tied,” the Des Moines Register reported. "If Carhart would walk in here right now, and he had a building permit, he meets all the specifications of the state of Iowa, he could open a facility," Hanafan said, according to reporter Reid Forgrave. "And there's not much we can do about it, because we have a state law that's different from Nebraska's." And there in lies the answer: new legislation. Not just in Iowa but also in Maryland, where Carhart is reportedly already performing abortions late in pregnancy, and, perhaps, Indiana, where Carhart has made noises about moving to. Nebraska made its collective disapproval of Carhart explicit by passing its first-in-the-nation “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.” Understanding that he could no longer abort babies 20 weeks and older, Carhart began preparing plans to ply his trade elsewhere. (It is unclear whether Carhart is still performing abortions at his clinic in Bellevue, Nebraska, or how much “business” his abortion clinic is doing in his absence.) The demonstration of opposition in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Carhart was the second in less than a month. In November more than 300 foes voiced their stern opposition. As we discussed at the time, responding to rumors that Carhart wanted a vacant city-owned lot, the City Council stipulated that a 24, 393-square-foot-vacant lot cannot be used as an abortion clinic, according to Jon Leu of the World-Herald News Service. "That restriction remains with the land 'no matter how many times it is sold,' said City Attorney Richard Wade. It can be removed only with action by the City Council." Leu added, however, that "The city cannot force private property owners to impose similar restrictions, and the city's zoning rules permit an abortion clinic in any commercial zone or in an area zoned for administrative-professional uses" (www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Nov10/nv113010.html). According to the Register
story the founders of Gabriel's Corner, a crisis pregnancy
center, were in attendance. Their CPC is across the street from
a local Planned Parenthood clinic. Catholic deacon Jean Plourde
and his wife say as many as 400 women have given birth because
of the center’s encouragement. |
