Backward & Forward

Custer went forward. Lemmings go forward. The Light Brigade went forward. And now, in an exquisitely apt marketing move, the incumbent president has chosen "Forward" as the slogan for his re-election campaign.

The vice-president, in a noisy visit to Keene State College a few days ago (why does he always wind up yelling at his audience, anyway?), pleased the youthful crowd by declaring "we will not go back to the 50s on social policy."

So social policy shall move "forward" if the incumbent president is re-elected. Social policy includes abortion, which will remain legal if we choose to move "forward". Not safe-and-rare, as former presidents have said in an effort to sound moderate.  Just legal, so we don't go back to the bad old pre-Roe v. Wade days of back alleys & knitting needles and women dying.

Listening at one hearing after another in Concord this year on bills that touch on the life issues, I was struck more than once by how many of Roe's defenders sounded scared of the future even as they said they were determined not to go back into the past.

Eugenic abortion was surely one of the twentieth century's most ghastly ideas - one that belongs in the past, even when it's prettied up with the euphemism "therapeutic." Yet this year, I heard objections to New Hampshire's fetal homicide bill (still in the balance, by the way, with yet another vote coming next week) based on the fear that it might interfere with selective reduction. Assisted reproductive technologies that call for implantation of multiple embryos in a woman's womb also call for the culling of the surplus once pregnancy is established. Apparently, to protect the brave new world, he only way to face the future is by planting one foot firmly in the past.

A bill for informed consent for abortion prompted some women to recount heartbreaking stories of pregnancies gone tragically wrong, with fetal anomalies diagnosed prenatally. The mothers chose abortion, because it "wasn't fair" to bring such a child into the world. So what's wrong with informed consent? These women said they resented the assumption that abortion providers weren't already being perfectly upfront. They also complained that the 24-hour waiting period in the bill would have caused them an additional 24 hours of anguish (with the unspoken corollary being that their anguish somehow subsided once their children were dead). Keep abortion quick and unregulated: no back-alley abortionist from the 1950s could have asked for more. Those shades of the 50s can rest easy, knowing that New Hampshire's 2012 informed consent bill was killed.

New Hampshire public health officials do not collect abortion statistics, letting the abortion industry voluntarily provide whatever information it sees fit. A bill to require collection of statistics was passed this year after being amended into nearly-unrecognizable form, and now a committee will consider whether it's a good idea to collect the statistics. (This is glacial progress, as opposed to incremental.) Who fought this one? Abortion providers.  Planned Parenthood of Northern New England along with the Feminist Health Center in Concord and the Lovering Center in Greenland all sent representatives to the hearings on this one. They all earnestly assured legislators that they DO report the number of abortions done at their facilities. Honest. They do not want oversight even to the extent of accounting for the number of procedures or reporting on morbidity and mortality to the women who have abortions. Again, the pre-Roe industry of illegal abortionists would approve wholeheartedly.

In the past, no one kept track of how many women suffered and died after abortion. Bernard Nathanson, MD, a founder of NARAL who later became a pro-life advocate, wrote candidly after leaving the abortion industry that NARAL leaders invented maternal-mortality figures in the late 1960s to try to build support for liberalization of abortion laws. To this day, we don't know if legal abortion has been any safer for women. The same people who criticize anecdotal reports from pro-life sources, and demand hard figures, flee from those figures when they make their own arguments. (By the way, if you can find Nathanson's book Aborting America, read it. It's one of those basic books for the pro-life library.)

Moving forward, really forward, means we will want to know for sure how many women are being left to die or suffer permanent injury after abortion. We will want to know who is doing the procedures and we'll want to know the safety record of the provider (granting that the babies always wind up dead). We'll want to know at what point in pregnancy the terminations take place. We'll want to do more for each other than recommend death when disability looms.

So, forward, Mr. Biden?

Week In Review, Days Ahead

Several topics and observations today. Something for everyone, I hope. Copy and forward as you wish.

Tenacity and patience have thus far kept a few important bills going. I expect that both the partial birth ban and fetal homicide bills will be scrutinized anew by House committees on Tuesday. The Senate amended both bills, and the House may choose to concur, requiring no further action except a trip to Governor Lynch's desk, or request a committee of conference. Concurrence would be the right outcome, since the Senate amendments didn't gut either bill.

Lynch's spokesman was finally moved to take note of HB 217 (the fetal homicide) a few days ago, and his remarks were not encouraging.

Keep an eye on the Cornerstone Policy Research Facebook page and @nhcornerstone Twitter feed for Tuesday coverage of House committee votes on these bills.

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Nongermane amendments are nothing new in legislative work, rules or no rules. If leadership wants one, in it goes, productive or not. Such moves always seem like a good idea at the time, at least to the person making the amendment.

The Senate sent a late term abortion ban (HB 1660) to interim study. Not so fast, replied the House last Thursday. The ban was added as an amendment to a bill on pulse oximetry for newborns (SB 348) by a four-vote margin. Less than ten minutes later, the House reversed itself. The sponsor of SB 348, the indisputably pro-life Rep. Lynne Blankenbeker (R-Concord), pleaded for the main bill, stressing that the Senate would kill it if it contained the abortion amendment.

The nongermane amendment in this case resulted in nothing more than two confusing House votes. The proponents of late-term abortions can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that New Hampshire will continue to keep abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy.

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Filing period for the fall elections is coming up June 6-15. Details here. Some good pro-lifers have chosen not to run again, so anyone who wants to step up may find an open seat available.

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Mark your calendar for Friday, June 8th at noon. There will be a Standing Up for Religious Freedom rally outside the federal courthouse in Concord, where a similar rally was held a few months ago. As long as the federal HHS mandate is still part of Obamacare, religious freedom is under attack and no church is safe. See you there - and bring your kids, your neighbors, your minister, and even your state rep. I'll be one of the speakers. (Please be there anyway.) There was a  Bush II era bumper sticker displayed back in the day by some disaffected voters: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Okay, then. Let's all be utterly patriotic on June 8th.

"Bureau of Womanhood Conformity": Share this Video

The Susan B. Anthony List has created this web video that's less than two minutes long and ought to be seen by everyone voting or running for office this year. Share it with your teenagers, too. See link below.

http://bit.ly/KntoXf

About Time: an Alternative to Guttmacher Institute

I note with great pleasure the rollout of a web site for the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Check it out here. The Lozier Institute is the education and research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List (web site here), which promotes the election of pro-life women and men to Congress. The Lozier Institute looks to me like a breakthrough in policy research.

For years, the Guttmacher Institute has been relied upon by policymakers at all levels for statistical information about abortion and reproductive health care (which are two different things - repeat after me: abortion is not health care). Formerly an arm of Planned Parenthood, the organizations allegedly split in the late 1970s. However formal the split may be in a legal and financial sense, Guttmacher is hand-in-glove with PP on policy.

Guttmacher's statistics and findings are given entirely too much credence at the State House, as I've seen through the years. I have to remind lawmakers from time to time that any "statistics" Guttmacher reports about New Hampshire are based on voluntarily-reported information from abortion providers, since the state of NH does not collect abortion statistics. Most of the NH statistical information reported to Guttmacher about abortions comes from PPNNE. PPNNE then sends its lobbyist to Concord to fight efforts to enact a bill to require the state to collect statistics. PP-reported figures go to Guttmacher, which bases policy research on those numbers, and then the research is used by PP to advance its mission. Fuzzy math, cozy relationship.

I am looking forward to learning what the Lozier Institute is able to do to provide a clearer picture of how abortion is affecting us as individuals and as a community. It's encouraging to know that the parent organization, SBA List, has been extremely supportive of efforts in NH and elsewhere to require public health authorities to gather accurate information. How many abortions in NH? How old are the mothers? At what gestational age are pregnancies terminated? What about morbidity and mortality for the mothers, both short- and long-term? Who's doing these procedures? Where?

I recommend supporting the Lozier Institute's research. It will take time, but I hope legislators and public health officials will soon see that Guttmacher isn't the only kid on the block.

Week in Review: Hurry Up & Wait

As previously reported, the Senate last Wednesday passed HCR 31, commending pregnancy care centers. This straightforward legislative pat on the back to an invaluable pro-life resource must go to the House for agreement on some changes.

HB 217, fetal homicide, was put off by the Senate until next Wednesday. The amendment printed in the calendar should not create any further delay, but then again, there have already been two delays that caught me and the chief sponsor by surprise.

HCR 41 was killed in the Senate. This resolution asking Congress to scold the feds for funding PPNNE over the objections of the Executive Council would have had no substantive effect but would have sent a message to our Washington representatives.

Legislators annoyed by the financial end-run in PPNNE's favor should now focus on HB 228. There will be other contract proposals before the Exec Council, and HB 228 sits on the table in the Senate. That's not a good place for it.

Fate unknown, possibly being taken up this week:

• HB 1679, partial-birth abortion ban. House & Senate must reconcile language.
• HB 1653, respecting conscience rights for medical professionals, was tabled by the House months ago and seems unlikely to be taken up.

The legislative session runs through the end of June, but the state budget dominates the last weeks of a session. The life bills are likely to be dealt with soon.

The House will meet next week on Tuesday & Wednesday, and possibly Thursday if the lengthy calendar requires that much time. The Senate will meet Wednesday.

2012 NH Republican Women's Summit #5

Last one. I'll skip remarks on the upcoming luncheon speaker, Nashua mayor Donnalee Lozeau, whose topic is "How to find balance and do it all." Puh-leeze. There's balance, and there's doing it all, and there's a difference, and I say that with due respect to the accomplished Mayor Lozeau. I once heard a quote attributed to actress Katharine Hepburn, who was asked whether a woman could have it all. "Yes," she replied, "but not all at once."  To me, a married woman with five grown kids and a job and therefore some experience in this area, that has the ring of truth.

Phyllis Woods mentions plans for 2012 "victory offices" statewide - satellite offices of the GOP, which proved so effective in 2010 - which of course are dependent on financial support for the GOP. Volunteers will be needed in these offices as well. When I worked for John Stephen in 2010 on his gubernatorial campaign, those offices and the people in them were tremendously helpful. Even as an independent, I knew a good thing when I saw one. Of course, these offices will help any GOP man or woman, including the ones who will earn the title of RINO and the ones who will vote against every imaginable piece of pro-life legislation. That's where pro-life PACs & activist groups come in. I'm glad to be with Cornerstone.

Alicia Preston, communications whiz & consultant: "I talk to people about how to talk to people." Oh, and "how to not get in trouble with the media ... Be cautious, but never fear them...Be concise and be accurate." Reasonable advice. I like the way she handles Q&A. She talks a mile a minute and manages to be clear at the same time.

All this good nuts-and-bolts information is probably being spread by both parties in forum after forum. I'm not sure where the seeds will take root. It's interesting to see the turnout here today & to hear the applause for things like parental notification. The filing period in a few weeks will tell me if all this training is a step in the right direction.

2012 NH Republican Women's Summit #4

Morning break means going to the literature table in the lobby. I note that the NH House Republican Victory PAC has a flyer for a candidate training class in Concord June 16, 9 a.m.-noon.

Next speaker: Christine Peters, NH Federation of Republican Women, talks about her 13-year involvement in the NHFRW and how the group fosters political involvement. The money they raise goes in large part to GOP women running for office. (By the way NHFRW has one of the more useful handouts in the lobby: "Running for NH House 101.") Christine promotes the Lilac Luncheon, coming up May 21 in Nashua, with Anita Moncrief (of exposing-ACORN fame) speaking on "Integrity of the Ballot Box" (voter ID).

Jen Wrobleski on the role of a delegate and state committee member: I, your faithful blogger, leave the details to those who want to contact the state GOP. (Sorry, Ms. Wrobleski.) I will add that running for delegate gives you a seat at the party convention this fall, allowing one to vote on the party platform. I was a delegate several times in my far-distant Republican past. Filing period and election are the same as for state reps.

As Wrobleski is peppered with questions about the somewhat convoluted state committee process, I look around the room and note that there's a broad age range represented in this room. That goes for presenters as well as attendees. That's good to see. I wonder if there's good geographic distribution as well. I'm pleased to see one rep from Littleton, and I hope she brought some friends with her.

And now for first-term Rep. Regina Birdsell, who's not only a terrific state rep but someone I respect very much for her work on Sen. Santorum's recent presidential campaign. (And she's running for re-election - good news!) She's here today to speak about NH's unique Vesta Roy Excellence in Public Service Program, which has become one of the most respected political training programs in the state. She graduated from the program in '09. The program is nine months long, with a new group of GOP women participating every year. This is worth looking up: www.vestaroyseries.com.