By Dave Andrusko

Part Two looks at Jesse Jackson, who pitched his pro-life convictions overboard 25 years ago to run for President. Please send your comments on either part to daveandrusko@gmail.com.   If you'd like, follow me on http://twitter.com/daveha.

Maybe it's just me, but just because something that is transparently wrong is approved, the fact that everyone already knew that would be the result doesn't make it any the less difficult to swallow. For example, everybody knew the Baltimore City Council was going to pass Bill 09-0406 to harass women helping centers on Monday, but that doesn't make the 12-3 vote any the less outrageous.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon

Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake carried the Abortion Establishment's water on this one (Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland are reported to be the inspiration), dubbing the bill a "truth in advertising" measure.

Pro-abortion Mayor Sheila Dixon has not indicated her intentions. She can either sign or veto the measure or allow it to become law without her signature. If the bill becomes law, the four pro-life pregnancy centers in the city will be required to post signs in English and Spanish indicating that they do not provide abortion or birth control. Failure to do so with ten days would result in a fine of $150.

Bullies that they are, Rawlings-Blake and her 11 colleagues took on organizations that run on shoe-string budgets and are manned almost entirely by volunteers.

"The passage of this piece of legislation may serve as serious encouragement to those who would like to see our organizations saddled with more laws and restrictions," Carol A. Clews, executive director of the Center for Pregnancy Concerns, a nonprofit anti-abortion organization that receives donations from religious groups and has operated in Baltimore for 30 years," according to the Baltimore Sun's Julie Scharper. "The crisis centers are 'very upfront about the services that we provide and the services we don't provide,' Clews said. Most of their clients have already decided to continue their pregnancies but need help with utility bills, job referrals, maternity clothes or prenatal vitamins, she said."

The Baltimore bill is thought to be the first of its kind in the nation. Predictably, the plague threatens to spread.

Montgomery County Council member Duchy Trachtenberg has introduced similar legislation. This kind of requirement--aptly described as "condescending" by Nancy Paltell, associate director for the respect life department of the Maryland Catholic Conference--is so egregiously misguided even the reliably pro-abortion editorial page of the Washington Post balked.

Under the headline, "Pregnant, and in need of help: Montgomery's legislation on disclosure to women is flawed," the Post observed, "The proposed disclosure is too cryptic to be an effective alarm bell for many women and yet is suspect because it singles out pregnancy centers while absolving abortion clinics of any disclosure requirements regarding adoption or parenting options."

The Baltimore City Council had the opportunity to require every facility, including abortion clinics, to list its services--and predictably chose otherwise.

"It should not just apply to these four centers," said Councilman James B. Kraft, who tried unsuccessfully last week to broaden the scope of the bill," the Sun reported. "But if you hold out yourself as a facility that gives advice to a young woman who finds herself pregnant--whether she wants abortion, comprehensive birth control, prenatal care, postnatal care--there should be a sign saying we do not provide advice on this one option."

The amendment lost 10-5.

The irony--or blatant dishonesty--of the situation is that it appears as if the rationale for these bills is not so much that signs aren't posted--as noted above Carol Clews says the centers are 'very upfront about the services that we provide and the services we don't provide"--as it is alleged false information is dispensed at the women helping centers. By this they mean, for instance, the link between induced abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer which (in the Post's words) was "debunked" by the National Cancer Institute. (It hasn't been. See www.nrlc.org/news_and_views/July06/nv072406.html)

But, as the Post puts it charitably, "Ms. Trachtenberg's legislation does not directly address this problem." One wonders how long it will be before Big Sister passes a bill to censure what women helping centers can tell women in crisis situations.

Come to think of it, maybe they'll ban dispensing maternal clothes or prenatal vitamins or forbid helping women with their utility bills. After all there is no length that proponents of "choice" won't go to ensure that women make the "right" choice: death.

Part Two