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New York City Council's
Mean but Incoherent Assault on CPCs
Part One of Two By Dave Andrusko Good evening, and thanks to all our readers for taking time to read Today's News & Views. Part Two explains in clear and straightforward language how important abortion was in the mid-term elections. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), we write about an award given to a most deserving scientist. Wesley Smith updates us on important preliminary vote in Scotland. 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. I've used this blog, the National Right to Life News Today blog, and our newspaper the National Right to Life News to closely follow the pro-abortionists' all-guns-blazing attack on Crisis Pregnancy Centers. It is not a pretty sight, a classic illustration of how bullies always work. Working in cahoots with local pro-abortion authorities NARAL is desperate to put out of business mom and pop CPCs whose only crime is that they are an alternative to the killing machine. The latest campaign is the handmaiden of New York City Council, whose driving force is Council member Jessica Lappin. The Council's Women's Issues Committee held a hearing Tuesday on legislation "that would force New York CPCs to state in all their advertising that they do not offer abortions and that they do not have licensed medical staff on their premises (if in fact they don't)," according to Greg Pfundstein writing at National Review Online. "They would also have to post similar signs at their offices." Pfundstein does a brilliant job illuminating the dark impulses behind the measure and the faulty--not to mention discriminatory--impulse behind the measure. To take just a couple of examples from his fine account at http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/249931/crisis-pregnancy-centers-new-york-city-what-misinformation-greg-pfundstein. First, advocates there (as elsewhere) are extremely vague about what exactly constitutes "false advertising"--or so general as to include everything they don't like. For instance, they insist there is NO link between the well-establishment link between a woman having an induced abortion and increasing her risk of breast cancer. It is "false advertising" for CPCs to have literature which suggests there is. Pfundstein doesn't happen to mention it in his piece, but the leading expert at demonstrating that this connection--Dr. Joel Brind--testified Tuesday. As Brind concluded in his prepared remarks, "[T]he denial of the fact of greater future risk of breast cancer after choosing abortion compared to choosing not to abort a pregnancy already in progress underscores the critical value of CPCs in providing this life-saving information to pregnant women." The other examples "false advertising" claims are laughably inept, as you will see when you read Pfundstein's piece. "And if you're wondering about the bill's constitutionality, you're not the only one," Pfundstein writes. "The law would compel speech, regulate speech on the basis of content, and regulate speech on the basis of viewpoint -- and for those three reasons… the law violates the First Amendment and will not stand up to scrutiny." To return to the "truth in advertising" scam for one second, Pfundstein tells us that one councilman asked Fran Freedman of the Department of Consumer Affairs (a supporter of the bill) and Dr. Susan Blank of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene "whether a person might think an organization called Planned Parenthood focuses its efforts on assisting women who choose parenthood. No, said Blank and Freedman, a reasonable person would not assume that an organization called Planned Parenthood is primarily concerned with parenthood."Ooook. This came after opponents were told that a woman coming to an "organization called Bridge to Life, the Sisters of Life, or Life Center" might be confused about what it is they do! The most interesting testimony came from a witness who (not knowing who they were) told of how she had gone to Planned Parenthood for help. Happily pregnant, but a little "financially strapped," she had come to PPFA thinking they might help her find a car seat "since you're not allowed to leave the hospital without one." Not a chance--but how about a late-term abortion? When it comes to CPCs
against pro-abortion behemoths such as NARAL who have local
officials under their thumb, you can't help thinking of David
and Goliath. Only in this case rather than stones, it is the
truth in the form of loving compassion that will bring the Giant
down. |