Fox News reporter and seasoned litigator Megyn Kelly, 6 months pregnant, admitted how hard it was to force herself to look at the photos. Any decent person would get the shivers imagining how such a slashing might feel—particularly on the tender bodies of tiny children.

However, an even more chilling component exists, as revealed in scientific studies developed over the past three decades: that unborn children are “wired” to feel pain MORE intensely than any child or adult ever can!

This is due to the physiology of the pre-term child, reported Emory University professor/ pediatric intensive care physician, Dr. Jean Wright to Congress,“the fibers and structures needed to feel pain are present but the mechanisms needed to modulate and tone down the response are poorly developed.”

“The highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero from 20-30 weeks gestation,” testified Prof. Kanwaljeet Anand to Congress, based in part on his  seminal work, first published in1987. Anand explains,

“the process of…surgical incision into the fetal cranium / upper neck of the fetus will result in prolonged and intense pain… more intense than [that of] older infants, children or adults to a similar injury.”

Thus, the stabbing of those babies at the Gosnell clinic is more horrific than can be imagined.

Abortion was legalized without the scientific knowledge that pre-term children not only can feel pain, but feel it more excruciatingly; massive medical documentation can be found at  www.doctorsonfetalpain.org. National Right to Life developed a strategy to pass legislation that will reach the Supreme Court and confront the justices with this additional concept.  This allows states to show the High Court that civilized people want abortion banned at least at the stage when children can acutely feel the torture of abortion.
         
Kansas passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in 2011, after we informed legislators that the issue of whether aborted children could experience the pain of abortion had not been a consideration of the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling.

At that time, surgery for preemies, infants and toddlers relied on taping the child to the surgical table to immobilize the body so that the needed procedure could be performed! Ill children were considered too frail to tolerate anesthesia, and there was insufficient data on how, and in what amounts, successful pain relief could be administered.

That medical era changed in the 1980s with increasing studies showing the hormonal and cardio-resuscitory responses of unborn children to painful stimuli. With this new knowledge, the specialties of pediatric surgery and pediatric anesthesiology developed, as well as NICU units with special protocols acknowledging the hypersensitivities of preemies.

Physicians now know how to detect and treat pain in the tiniest of patients. In fact, due to advances in pediatric anesthesia techniques, unborn children can be removed temporarily from the womb, endure surgical repair, and be returned to finish gestation.

With some limited coverage by the mainstream media of Gosnell’s vicious murder of pre-term children born alive, the general public has now been awakened. It would be a silver lining if the same public who feel pity for Gosnell’s tiny victims, allow themselves to actively reflect upon the acute pain-capability of the children destroyed during abortion.

The time is ripe for passage of a federal Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Read more in key articles here, here, and here.

Kermit Gosnell

A Philadelphia jury has found abortionist Kermit Gosnell guilty of first degree murder for severing the spinal cords of 3 babies born alive during illegal, late-term abortions–a practice believed to have occurred hundreds of times, according to a Feb. 7, 2011 grand jury report.  The 261-page report dubbed Gosnell’s abortion business a “House of Horrors” due to its gross filth, pest-infestation and the storage of fetal remains, scattered throughout in cabinets and freezers.

Eight other former staffers of Gosnell have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges and await sentencing. Gosnell was also convicted of hundreds of charges ranging from infanticide to running a corrupt organization, including:

• manslaughter for the drug-overdose death of a 6-months-pregnant woman;
• 21 felony counts of illegal abortions beyond the 24 week limit;
• 211 misdemeanor counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law.

Gosnell’s premises had not been inspected for 17 years, beginning under the pro-abortion administration of Gov. Tom Ridge, motivated by a desire not to be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Notably, the grand jury report revealed that complaints about infection, injuries and illegalities at the Gosnell clinic to state authorities were not pursued–including this incident:

“Almost a decade ago, a former employee of Gosnell presented the Board of Medicine with a complaint that laid out the whole scope of his operation: the unclean, unsterile conditions; the unlicensed workers; the unsupervised sedation; the underage abortion patients; even the over-prescribing of pain pills with high resale value on the street. The department assigned an investigator, whose investigation consisted primarily of an offsite interview with Gosnell. The investigator never inspected the facility, questioned other employees, or reviewed any records. Department attorneys chose to accept this incomplete investigation, and dismissed the complaint as unconfirmed.”

One significant result of the Gosnell trial is that Congress has sent a formal inquiry to all 50 state health departments concerning abortion clinic regulation and enforcement. KFL executive director, Mary Kay Culp, commented on this development, “When Kansas responds, they will have to answer that we indeed have an abortion clinic licensing law passed in 2011, but that because of a lawsuit by the abortion industry, that law remains enjoined and at the mercy of Kansas courts, despite it having been designed to be fully constitutional. Our hope is that one result of the Gosnell verdict would be to help lift the unfair injunction on the Kansas abortion clinic licensing law.”

Kansas had long attempted to pass an abortion clinic licensing law, particularly when several Kansas abortionists had accrued scores of malpractice filings that were settled without media attention–but then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ vetoed abortion clinic licensure laws in 2003 and 2005. Notably during this time period, Kansas City, Kansas abortionist, Krishna Rajanna, echoed Gosnell’s business model: a filthy, blood-stained, trash-filled clinic using underage and non-trained employees and storing fetal remains in the staff freezer.

The Kansas Board of Healing Arts allowed Rajanna to stay open, even with evidence of  improper drug protocols and substandard conditions. The Board did eventually take Rajanna’s license in 2005, as Sebelius geared up for re-election. This ostensibly gave Sebelius some veneer of “clinic safety accountability,” with her vetoing of clinic bills and her involvement in covering up a 2005 late-term abortion death in Wichita.

The Board, now under new leadership, is no longer a pawn of the abortion industry. They have revoked the Kansas license of abortionist Kris Neuhaus for failing to meet the standard of care in evaluating abortion-seeking teens. The Board is taking seriously a complaint filed by Kansans for Life against Kansas-licensee, LeRoy Carhart, for the Feb. 7 death of Jennifer Morbelli, a late-term abortion client from his Maryland office.

Although the Maryland county police closed their investigation Monday without filing criminal charges, the Chief Medical Examiner has declined to release the final autopsy results and no results of an inquiry have been released by the Maryland Mental Hygiene’s Office of Health Care Quality. The Kansas Healing Arts Board can conduct its own investigation into the Morbelli death, and now has stronger legal grounds to pursue disciplinary action–even if Carhart cancels his Kansas license– because the death occurred while Carhart was licensed in Kansas.

Despite limited media coverage of the Gosnell case, the nation may be awakening, not only to the full horrors of killing the innocent, but the corruption of medicine and lack of human decency inside abortion clinics. It is a situation that Kansans have been trying mightily to battle for decades, and are now seeing some improvement.

Gov. Sam Brownback, long a champion of non-embryo-destructive stem cell research during his tenure as U.S. Senator for Kansas, is anticipated to sign the legislation soon, along with the Pro-Life Protections Act, House Bill 2253.

SB 199 does not mandate tax funding, although some seed money in the Kansas annual budget is not entirely off the table yet when the legislature returns in May.  But the Center will actively pursue grants from private and public sources. For example, the numerous disease foundations as well as the U.S. military, dealing with thousands of injured veterans, would have a strong interest in donating to this project.

Dr. David Prentice, Adjunct Professor of Molecular Genetics and an international expert on the stem cell topic, has testified annually over the past decade to Kansas lawmakers about adult (non-embryonic) stem cell (ASC) treatments, including that:
•    1 in 200 Americans will undergo an ASC transplant in their lifetime;
•    over 60,000 ASC transplants occur globally each year;
•    there are over 2,600 ongoing, or completed, FDA-approved ASC trials.

As reported yesterday, the Vatican has said that its international conference this week on ethical stem cell research will aim to correct the public misperceptions of the burgeoning scientific field. The Washington Times quoted conference co-sponsor, Dr. Robin Smith,  “Regenerative medicine is poised to revolutionize disease management by finding new ways to boost the body’s ability to heal itself…

“People are dying, literally, who could be treated or cured.”

Even as the MSCTC was touted during debate on SB 199 as expanding cures and treatments that would end suffering for thousands, some Kansas lawmakers opposed it. Sen. Laura Kelly (D-Topeka) and Rep. Barbara Bollier (R-Mission Hills) led opposition to this center as ‘meddling’ with university independence. They tried to imply that MSCTC was more pro-life politics than good science.

The real reason was sour grapes—most of these legislators have been on the wrong (and losing) side for a long time.  They and/or their mentors:
•    failed to prevent ethical limitations in the 2004 Kansas Bio-Science Authority Act governing state commerce,
•    failed to achieve embryonic stem cell and cloning initiatives from 2005-2007, and
•    failed to keep tax-funded abortion training at KUMC the past two years.

But pro-lifers won’t hold that grudge when those legislators and their families come to the MSCTC for treatments in the near future!

There has been much misreported about the Pro-Life Protections Act, including the impact of this declaration on fertilization (Read James Taranto here about abortion supporters’ alarmism on this.)

Section two is neither a personhood measure, nor affects birth control (protected under Kansas law here.)  “Personhood” measures attempt to defy Roe v Wade by (1) winning a state ballot initiative that declares the state constitution forbids abortion, and (2) hoping the federal courts will allow it to stand. Kansans for Life does not believe such a strategy will succeed due to the federal Supremacy Clause.

The language in section two was copied from Missouri, which the U.S. Supreme Court let stand in 1989 in its Webster decision. Thirteen states have adopted it. Under the declaration of life begins at fertilization, the state may legislate with a preference for childbirth over abortion –in effect “corraling”  Roe from  drifting into other areas.  For example, because of Roe,

• some states don’t allow criminal prosecution for 2 victims when a pregnant woman is murdered –Kansas does allow such prosecution, under Alexa’s Law passed in 2007 (see here);
• some states allow the filing of lawsuits for compensation that a disabled child exists that ‘should have been aborted’ — these are wrongful birth lawsuits that Kansas now doesn’t allow, under the newly passed Kansas law, “Civil rights of the Unborn.”

The reality is that every state has been working for 40 years –either to promote abortion or to promote life –and Kansas is pro-life. Being a pro-life state is more than passing law, it is how our citizens stand against the forces that push abortion. Our state has continued to increase the number of centers across the state where pregnant women can get free assistance.

KANSAS LAW BACKGROUND
In 1973, the Roe Court cherry-picked some language to define a “constitutional” person such that homicide of the unborn could be accepted. But it was never denied that unborn were human beings, just that they could be aborted because they were not “protected constitutional persons” like their mother and the abortionist.

In 2007, for purposes of criminal prosecution, Kansas legally defined “person” and “human being” to include “unborn child” and  furthered defined unborn child as “a living individual organism of the species homo sapiens, in utero at any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth.” (see here)

In 2011, for purposes of abortion informed consent, Kansas adopted the South Dakota statement (approved by the eighth circuit appellate court in 2008) that “abortion terminates the life of a whole, separate, unique, living, human being.” (see here, section b(5))

Now in 2013, the legislature has officially adopted the scientific fact that life begins at fertilization as an undergirding for further public policies.

Rep. Lance Kinzer

Rep. Arlen Siegfreid

Late Friday evening, as the legislative session was ending, the Kansas legislature passed three pro-life bills that Kansans for Life is confident pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback will sign.

Due to late amendments, all the measures were procedurally re-affirmed by both chambers as “conference committee recommendations” and passed by large margins.

House Judiciary chair, Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe), drafted the lead bill for the last two sessions, the Pro-Life Protections Act. He commented,

 “These measures represent a significant step forward in our ongoing effort to advance thoughtful and targeted legislation that both defends innocent human life and protects women who are so often exploited by the abortion industry.”

The Pro-life Protections Act of 2013, HB 2253, was carried by Rep. Arlen Siegfreid (R- Olathe) and passed 90-30 in the House and 28-10 in the Senate. HB 2253 codifies abortion informed consent materials authorized by the state health department, and removes all tax streams that pay for abortion and give advantages to abortion businesses.

The informed consent section has an added mandate for the state department to facilitate medical information access and community support for families facing pre-birth and post-birth diagnoses of Down Syndrome and other conditions.

HB 2253 assures taxpayers are not directly funding abortion or abortion training at the state university, and forbids state discrimination against pro-life citizens and entities.

Rep. David Crum

Rep. John Rubin

As of this week, HB 2253 now includes SB 141, the ban on abortions done solely for the gender of the unborn child. This ban was passed earlier in the session by the Senate, and passed last year in the House as a provision in another bill. Kansas will join Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Arizona, in banning sex selection abortions.

The second measure secured Friday was SB 199, with votes of 90-30 in the House, 31-8 in the Senate. It establishes a unique Midwest Center for Stem Cell Therapy at University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) in collaboration with the Blood and Marrow Transplant Center of Kansas and the Via Christi Cancer Institute in Wichita. Rep. David Crum (R-Augusta) carried the bill.

The Center will expand ongoing “adult” and “cord blood” treatments and become a global clinical and educational resource for cures and treatments that do not use embryonic or fetal tissues. The Center will fill a void by producing clinical grade stem cells, increasing clinical trials in this region, maintaining a comprehensive stem cell database, and creating educational training modules.

The third bill that passed (which Kansans for Life supported) is HB 2164, by a vote count of  92- 28 in the House and 26-12 in the Senate. Under this bill, grand juries summoned by citizen petitions will be better protected from being undermined by local district attorneys.  A citizen-petitioned grand jury is an important watchdog tool, which has been used in Kansas to challenge government agencies not upholding pro-life and pro-family laws.

Last month, Kansas passed SB 142, “Unborn Civil Rights for the Unborn,” which outlaws civil actions of “wrongful birth” and “wrongful life” on behalf of disabled children. It was carried by House Corrections chair, John Rubin (R-Shawnee).

OPPONENTS’ TALKING POINTS CORRECTED:

Abortion supporters continue to mischaracterize these bills—even during debate in both chambers Friday night–so here are some needed corrections. Under these pro-life bills:

• only abortions done solely for sex selection are banned, otherwise abortions for any reason, including rape, remain legal until the 22^nd week of pregnancy, and after that time, can be obtained to preserve the life of the mother or prevent irreversible and substantial physical damage to her;
• hospitals suffer no penalties for treating life-of-the-mother crises including both ectopic pregnancies and emergencies throughout 9 months;
• the updated informed consent materials (created by KDHE since 1997) do not contain misinformation, do not say abortion causes breast cancer, and do not force any abortion provider to tell women ANYTHING because the materials are written and online;
• the acknowledgment that ‘life begins at fertilization’ is language approved in 1989 by the U.S. Supreme Court, and adopted by 13 other states–it does not challenge abortion decisions at the federal or state level;
• there was no money “taken” from the KUMC budget for the adult stem center, and the center is not hostage to politics, but is expanding on successful medical treatments ALREADY under way at KUMC and across the state.

Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook

The Kansas Pro-Life Protections Act (HB 2253) passed the Senate by a vote of 29-11, after a nearly 3-hour debate Monday that focused on extraneous amendments offered by pro-abortion Democrat Senators.

Only one amendment (tweaking the tax code) was adopted. Because of that, HB 2253 must procedurally be “re-passed” in the House before heading to Gov. Sam Brownback’s desk.

The Pro-Life Protections Act actually enacts no new restrictions on abortion, rather it:

• recognizes that life begins at fertilization for purposes of public policy decisions;
• prevents state discrimination against pro-life entities;
• restricts tax-payer funding for abortion;
• defunds abortion training at the state university medical school;
• keeps abortion businesses out of public school sex-ed;
• codifies informed consent topics already used by the state health department;
• strengthens medical and community support for Down Syndrome & other conditions.

Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R-Shawnee), Chair of the Health committee, introduced and defended HB 2253 as positive and protective legislation. She had her hands full explaining what the bill didn’t contain when rebutting senators repeating the spin that liberal pro-abortion forums like the Huffington Post have spewed for two years.

Sen. David Haley (D-Kansas City), who ordinarily causes pro-lifers to groan, really startled observers Monday by first complaining that abortion opponents “impose narrow Taliban-like philosophies” and then with his repeated–and bizarre– claim that “this bill would empower rapists.” Haley twice admitted in debate that “he didn’t know what was in the bill,” even though he was in the committee that took testimony and ‘worked’ the bill!

Haley offered three hostile amendments that failed; the first one was identical to the Wilson amendment which was offered and failed 2 weeks ago during House debate on this same bill.  Though described as limiting three abortion laws for women pregnant by assault, the language actually would invalidate ALL Kansas abortion statutes, including—just to name a few– informed consent, parental involvement, physician penalties, and protection of unborn children who feel pain.

Haley’s  second amendment was described as keeping birth control legal, which is already in Kansas statute, and his third motion was to table the bill.

Sen. Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence) introduced four amendments, one of which would overturn our 2011 law that excludes elective abortion coverage in private health plans. The ACLU took this law to court (a law which other states have had on the books for decades), forcing Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt to defend it. As the trial neared, the ACLU dropped the suit.

Francisco also made a motion to expand abortion deductions and a motion to add domestic partner language to the bill; those amendments failed. Her tax-tweaking amendment succeeded.

Senate Minority leader, Anthony Hensley (D-Topeka), heartily endorsed every defeated motion.

The third abortion supporter to offer an amendment was freshman Sen. Pat Pettey (D-Kansas City). She wanted breast cancer and pre-term birth topics removed from the bill’s informed consent provisions.

KDHE (the state health department) has determined for 15 years that these topics are relevant to provide legally acceptable informed consent.

KDHE cites the Institute of Medicine and a 2009 international meta-analysis in their exposition of possible future pre-term birth risk.

As for breast cancer, KDHE has a modest section citing that there are studies for and against what is known as “the independent” risk factor of abortion. What is pre-eminent is the incontrovertible biological evidence that the risk of breast cancer is reduced with a full-term delivery. An already-pregnant woman deserves that information.

In fact, a national Planned Parenthood fact sheet (submitted by the Kansas City affiliate in opposition to HB 2253) actually reinforces this fact in their breast cancer section:

“reproductive factors have been associated with risk for the disease since the seventeenth century…it is known that having a full-term pregnancy early in a woman’s childbearing years is protective against breast cancer.”

Now compare Planned Parenthood’s statement above with the first 3 sentences in the KDHE abortion informed consent booklet, under breast cancer risk:

 Your chances of getting breast cancer are affected by your pregnancy history. If you have carried a pregnancy to term as a young woman, you may be less likely to get breast cancer in the future. However, your risk is not reduced if your pregnancy is ended by an abortion.

The language is nearly identical! Sen. Pettey’s amendment failed. The challengers sought headlines, not improvements for the bill. Kansans can be proud of this legislation.

143 women were certified for abortion at Kansas clinics this year and did not return to obtain the procedure, compared to 182 in 2011. KDHE does not collect reasons for these “no-returns.” Kansas requires “Woman’s Right to Know” (WRTK) informed consent materials be accessed 24 hours prior to abortion, whether received from the abortion clinic at her initial visit, or through the state hotline, or just by viewing online at http://www.womansrighttoknow.org.

It is not unreasonable to surmise that the WRTK materials both contribute to “no-returns” as well as deter some women from ever entering a clinic.  A woman contemplating abortion may fear a lack of support for her pregnancy needs, or be responding to subtle or overt pressure from her family or the father of the child.  In the WRTK info, she finds:

1. fetal development explanations with high definition real-time sonography;
2. a directory of statewide locations for free individual ultrasounds and 80 pregnancy maintenance centers;
3. links to assistance for medically-challenging pregnancies;
4. warnings that coerced abortions are illegal.

OTHER STATS:
All categories saw a decrease except “RU486″ abortions by pill, which rose from 20% to 30% of total Kansas abortions. This rate exceeds the 2012 CDC chemical abortion national average of 17.4%. Kansas enacted a ban on chemical abortion obtained “by webcam” in the 2011 clinic regulation law, which is not in effect due to litigation.

Two-parent consent for abortions to minors under age 18 became law in July 2011.  KDHE did not publish the number of requests for judicial bypass (waiver of parental consent). Abortions to minors continue to decline, with those obtained by minors numbering 331 in 2011 and 304 in 2012.  Abortions to girls age 15 and under declined from 32 in 2011 to 25 in 2012.

Since July 2011, Kansas bans abortions to pain-capable unborn children at 22 weeks gestation, and KDHE reports 3 Kansas women obtained out-state abortions past 22 weeks gestation, compared with 8 in 2011 (before and after the new law).

Continuing a two-year trend, more abortions in Kansas are obtained by non-residents than residents. In 2011, non-resident abortions exceeded resident by 3,939 to 3,912, in 2012 by 3,796 to 3,661. 97% of the non-residents are from Missouri, a consistent figure, as 2 of 3 Kansas abortion providers  are located in the Kansas City KS/MO metro area.

There were 5 reports of abuse or neglect collected in conjunction with these abortions (4 in 2011) but no further details on resolution of these matters are published.

HB 2253, the Pro-Life Protections Act, has passed the House and awaits Senate action next week. Relevant to informed consent, HB 2253 will:

• add clarifying language to the coercion warnings that must be posted inside abortion clinics;
• maintain modest, medically-based risk discussion in WRTK materials about abortion, pre-term birth and breast cancer;
• require KDHE to beef up medical information access and community support connections for coping with pre- and post-natally-diagnosed disabilities.

Rep. Jan Pauls

Kansas passed three pro-life measures Tuesday. Two of them (SB 142 and SCR 1606) are headed to Gov. Sam Brownback’s desk, the third (SB 199, creating a stem cell center) is temporarily stalled in conference due to the addition of a friendly amendment.

Pro-lifers are acutely aware that over 55 million unborn children have been denied the right to life because of Roe v. Wade. However Roe’s interior logic has also infiltrated courtrooms increasingly in the form of ‘wrongful birth’ and ‘wrongful life’ lawsuits. These are suits brought under the claim that money damages are owed the parents because the baby—most often one with some significant disability—should not be alive.

Kansas passed SB 142 ‘Civil Rights for the Unborn’ by a vote Tuesday of 89-33 in the House, following earlier Senate passage by a vote of 34-5. Currently, thirteen states bar wrongful birth claims by statute or case law and 34 bar wrongful life suits by statute or case law.

This bill does not interfere with the proper filing of malpractice for obstetric negligence and incompetence. However, this simple truth did not deter abortion supporters from telling the nation that Kansas doctors will be free under this bill to “lie to women.” After making that claim at the bill’s hearing in the House Corrections & Juvenile Justice committee, and

Rep. Lance Kinzer

The Kansas House today provisionally passed HB 2253, an updated version of last year’s Pro-Life Protections Act, with a final vote to be taken Wednesday. UPDATE Mar.20: Passed 92-31

The bill–which passed without any of the four hostile amendments offered–

• removes tax breaks for abortionists and tax funding of abortion & abortion training;
• codifies informed consent already created and in use by KDHE (state health dept.);
• unifies abortion statute definitions;
• adopts ‘Life begins at conception/fertilization’ as basis for legislation; and
• improves support for medically-challenging pregnancies and disabled children.

Opponents’ game plan today was to introduce a new headline for the liberal press—which ate it right up—that Kansas rejected a rape exception for abortion. Nevermind that the ‘exception’ was actually a bold attempt to overthrow ALL state abortion regulation from the past two decades with one floor amendment. The headline got through, to be sent out on social media.

Neither did abortion supporters brush aside their usual untruths that the Kansas bill is ‘sweeping’ and forces doctors to lie to women that abortion causes breast cancer. No matter how many times the truth is told that the bill contains over 50 pages of required tax statutes, and that abortionists will not be required to utter any KDHE scripted remarks, they will ignore it.

The most vocal opponent, as usual, was long-retired anesthesiologist, Rep. Barbara Bollier with her perennial complaint that the bill was medically inaccurate. “I’m so disappointed in you all who have not gone to medical school, who have not gone to nursing school and think you know better. It’s shameful” said the Republican from Mission Hills, addressing the House.

Bollier has many ‘facts’ wrong, for example,

there is no phrase “abortion-causes breast-cancer” in the state informed consent materials, or in this bill that codifies those materials—no matter how many times she repeats it.

Even though she was made to admit at the podium, near the end of debate, that the first full-term pregnancy is well known to give lifetime risk protection from breast cancer, Bollier stubbornly said that does not prove that abortion has any effect on a pregnancy. She denied the logic of alerting a woman experiencing her first pregnancy of the risk that can result by preventing a full term delivery!

The first of Boiller’s 3 hostile amendments attempted to remove the topic of abortion’s link to breast cancer and pre-term future births from Woman’s Right to Know informed consent materials. Then Bollier tried to delete information describing the pain capability of the unborn child from the same materials. As she did 2 years ago when fighting passage of a law protecting pain-feeling unborn children, Bollier insisted no science backs it up. This time, her defense was more astounding.

First, Bollier—who has not practiced medicine for 14 years, was flat out wrong when she told House members that anesthesia is never given to unborn children directly, but only through their mothers. Then, in an even more insistent and embarrassing display, she argued that unborn children can’t feel pain, or “feel” a stress reaction, they can only “mount” a stress reaction!

HB 2253 bill sponsor, and House Judiciary chairman, Rep Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe), rebutted Bollier:

When it comes to stress reactions I imagine an unborn child does indeed experience stress when being dismembered and having arms and legs torn off. He cited the scientific evidence at doctorsonfetalpain.org.

Retired surgeon, freshman Rep. Shanti Gandhi, (R-Topeka) stood in strong support of the bill: “I come here to confirm one fact that’s indisputable, at least in my case having studied medicine, that is that life does start at conception. If we believe that, I think this bill is too long. All it needs is one paragraph that says life begins at conception.”

Speaking in SUPPORT of the bill were Reps. Kinzer, Gandhi, Steve Brunk (R-Wichita), Peggy Mast (R- Emporia), Allan Rothlisberg (R-Grandview Plaza), and Joe Edwards (R-Haysville).

Speaking in OPPOSITION to the bill were Reps. Bollier, Jim Ward (D-Wichita), Louis Ruiz (D-Kansas City), Anne Kuether (D-Topeka), Annie Tietze (D-Topeka), John Wilson (D-Lawrence), Roderick Houston (D- Wichita), Patricia Sloop (D-Wichita), and Carolyn Bridges (R-Wichita).

Kari Rinker

This is National Multiple Sclerosis Society (MSS) Awareness Week, but anyone who desires a positive public image for MS faces two problems: the MSS advocacy of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research and MSS’ choice of an abortion activist as a regional coordinator/lobbyist.

First, and unbeknownst to most donors and volunteers, is that MSS’ official support for stem cell research includes the embryo-destructive kind (see here). Two weeks ago in Georgia, an MS activist testified in opposition to an embryo protection bill even though there are no MS cures or promising clinical trials using ESC. In fact, adult stem cells are providing actual successful treatments for MS (see here, here and here).

Support for ESC is an unethical position that will alienate a number of pro-lifers, and likely dissuade them from joining with MSS to help promote the interests of MS victims.

Secondly, what explains why the MSS Mid America chapter (covering Kansas, Western Missouri, and Nebraska) hired an ACORN-styled street fighter, Kari Rinker, to be their voice at the state Capitol in Topeka this year?

Rinker lobbied from 2009-2012 on behalf of the Kansas National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) Her no-holds-barred style gained additional notoriety last year when she pounded a rubber stamp on the committee podium when testifying against a pro-life bill.

Rinker’s commentary is regularly found in national extreme liberal press outlets, including the Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and Rachel Maddow Show– due to her perspective as ‘speaking truth to power in an anti-woman Republican state’. In Rinker’s words:

• Kansas legislators are “our elected oppressors”,
• pro-lifers are “fetus-worshippers”, and
• the state abortion informed consent website is “cyber fetus imagery”.

Rinker organized online harassment of pro-life Gov. Brownback (see here and here). She complained about him attending a prayer summit and the national day of prayer. She regularly derided his vision for creating a Culture of Life, as coming “from his mansion…while pimp[ing] out poverty-stricken single mothers”.

‘Shaming events’ (here and here) were proudly organized by Rinker and broadcast nationally, against the sponsor of a 2011 Kansas pro-life insurance law– a law that she and the American Civil Liberties Union sued, and lost.

Rinker goes beyond advocating the standard N.O.W. position for gay marriage and mandatory emergency contraception when slamming ‘rabid-dog bishops’ for defending religious liberty. She recently Facebooked this: ‘Pope-schmope, I was sick of hearing about it before this conclave sh-t even started’ and posted other mockery of the Catholic church.

At the end of last year, Rinker announced she had quit as N.O.W. lobbyist, so her showing up at an abortion hearing and a pro-choice luncheon, while wearing the official lobbying badge for MSS, might be written off as coincidence.  But she continues, to this day, to publish aggressive misinterpretations of pro-life legislation in the most liberal media venues.

This inevitably leads to the question of whether she may be taking advantage of her (assumedly salaried) MSS staff position to keep her hand in abortion lobbying and to train her young N.O.W. replacement.  In fact, Rinker’s Facebook page features a large MSS awareness banner reading “connections count” but the postings below it are mainly abortion connections.

Certainly, she is entitled to her opinions, but does MSS, much less their donors, know that they hired a gal who continues to actively promote a radical social agenda that includes bashing the very Kansas officials with the power to help MS advocacy?

On Wednesday, when she was traversing the Capitol to publicize MS Awareness Week, Rinker filed this national post, which criticizes specific Kansas legislators and bemoans how our state has the most “harmful abortion restrictions”!

It’s a no-brainer that lobbyists tasked with securing public support and helpful legislation are supposed to make friends and win over opponents. How can Rinker win over the 3/4 of the Kansas House and Senate who are pro-life, when she continues to slam them in the national press and on social media around the state? And will MSS donors and volunteers tolerate Rinker’s representation?

Whatever the answers, MS victims are not being well-served.