Arizona hospital threatens court order against mother refusing cesarean

The Lake Powell Chronicle reports on the troubling tug-of-war between an Arizona woman, pregnant with her fourth child, and Page Hospital.

Joy Szabo, 32, who is adamant about not wanting a C-section surgical delivery has been told by administrators at the hospital that she must submit to the procedure because their policy denies women who have previously had a cesarean to have subsequent vaginal deliveries. Her second child was delivered by emergency C-section due to conditions making it a medical necessity at the time. Subsequently, she gave birth to a third child by natural delivery.

The hospital, part of the Banner Health system, changed to a new, unwritten policy in June to prohibit vaginal births after cesarean (VBAC) “due to limited resources.” The Page facility is the only hospital in the area.

Szabo said, “They don’t want to allow VBACs because they aren’t equipped for emergency C-sections, but if they can’t do emergency C-sections, they shouldn’t be having labor and delivery at all. That’s why women go to the hospital to have their babies – in case there is an emergency.”

“My doctor doesn’t have a problem with me having natural delivery, but the hospital does,” she said. “The fact that I successfully had a VBAC two years ago lowers my risk for rupture, but that doesn’t matter since the hospital has decided that all VBACs have to have an ‘elective C-section.’ I think my definition of ‘elective’ differs from theirs because I don’t want this.”

Hospital administrators told Szabo they would get a court order to perform a C-section if necessary. Szabo is skeptical that a judge would order a pregnant woman to undergo surgery that many consider unnecessary.

According to the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN), almost a third of all births in the United States are by cesarean section, even though the recommended rate is between 5 and 10 percent. It has been estimated that half of the nearly 1 million cesareans performed every year are medically unnecessary.

In view of the overreach into the lives of the Szabo family, this video of Page Hospital produced by Banner Health is quite amusing. The hospital declares it is “patient centered” and “champions a strong commitment and personal connection with patients.”

Does that include obtaining a court order to force them to submit to unwanted surgery?

A tale of two judges

County Superior Court Judge blocks key elements of new laws; acquiesces to abortion provider

Maricopa County Judge Donald Daughton acquiesced to Planned Parenthood’s motion to block implementation of the Abortion Consent Act  (HB 2564), signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer. In a preliminary injunction he allowed the 24-hour waiting period to take effect.

Planned Parenthood is the state’s major abortion provider.

Supporters of the law said disclosures and waiting period would ensure Arizona women receive information they need to decide whether to have an abortion and allows time to reflect on that momentous decision. ”We believe that the judge gave short attention to the needs of Arizona women — but this is round one,” said Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy.

Daughton blocked provisions which prohibited non-doctors from performing surgical abortions, required parental consent forms for minors seeking abortions and those expanding an existing law permitting health-care workers to refuse to participate in abortions. 

Planned Parenthood argued that the requirements for the waiting period and providing women seeking an abortion full and accurate information about the risks and alternatives to abortion would limit access to the procedure.

But U.S. District Judge David Campbell refused to issue a preliminary injunction in a separate, challenge sought by abortion providers and pro-abortion groups. In refusing to block implementation of the waiting period and informed consent requirements, Judge Campbell said he would ask the Arizona Supreme Court for interpretations of some aspects of the law. Judge Campbell said the challengers hadn’t shown they would prevail once the case is finally decided.

The AP report is available here.

Pro-abortion advocate Terry Goddard takes on the role of gubernatorial candidate

On Wednesday, 191 bills which gained legislative approval and were signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, are scheduled to become law. But pro-abortion groups are challenging the enactment of pro-life bills in separate state and federal lawsuits.

Hearings on both lawsuits are set for Tuesday.  Planned Parenthood has filed a motion to block implementation of the laws.

The bills ban the horrific practice of partial-birth abortion, require a 24-hour waiting period, ban non-physicians from performing the procedure, grant protections for health care workers and allow for parental consent.

Now,  Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, whose fervent support of abortion was clear as he delivered the keynote address at a Planned Parenthood event earlier this year, has recused himself from the matter, allowing Chief Deputy Tim Nelson, longtime Napolitano aide,  to replace him as acting attorney general on cases pending in state and federal courts.

Goddard’s office said he stepped aside because of the possible appearance of a conflict of interest. 

No kidding!

In June Goddard brought Nelson, the unsuccessful Democrat candidate for Maricopa County Attorney, onboard as the A.G.’s Chief Assistant.

The question to be asked, is how independent will Nelson, just recently hired to this top post, be in enforcing these laws when his boss so openly opposes them?

The story behind the story

Most of us have seen it — the utterly incredible worshipful brainwashing of young children at the B. Bernice Young School in Burlington, New Jersey.

But there’s more.

FOX News provides an exposé of the political agenda of Dr. Denise King, principal of the elementary school and her arrogant refusal to apologize to parents for the indoctrination of their young children, saying she “would allow the performance again if she could.”

The lyrics to the songs of praise for the great accomplishments of President Barack Hussein Obama are provided here. The network also includes a fascinating slide show of other child propaganda used in various countries throughout the years.

It’s still too hot to be taken in by TUSD’s snow job

The Republic’s Doug MacEachern writes that AZ School Superintendent Tom Horne traveled to the Old Pueblo to shine some light on the Tucson Unified School District’s planned race-based discipline policy. MacEachern reports that he “admires Horne’s moxie for facing down the education ideologues, but it appears he set himself up for the local newspaper — a thorough-going advocate of TUSD’s most radical policies — to whack him.”  In addition to the biased news report, here is the snow-job editorial  — a bit hard to take when the temperature is still in the triple digits.

MacEachern verifies that Horne has interpreted the relevant section correctly. Which brings us to the defense of the policy presented in today’s Arizona Daily Star story by TUSD Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen.

Fagen said Horne’s depiction of the policy “is really not the truth.”

MacEachern writes: That simply is not a fair reading of the Governing Board’s plan. According to the language of the Plan as adopted by the district governing board, African-American and Latino students are singled out because “TUSD recognizes that there are ethnic/racial disparities in student discipline actions,” and, as the Plan repeats several times, “special attention will be dedicated to data regarding African American and Hispanic students.”

To suggest, as Superintendent Fagen does, that African-American and Latino students aren’t singled out for any special attention in the Plan is utterly disingenuous. The Plan employs variations of the phrase “especially African American and Hispanic students” no fewer than seven times in the Discipline section, including this explicit reference:

“The district will reduce the disproportionate number of suspensions of African American and Hispanic students.”

Seeing Red AZ covered this bizarre race-based system of discipline earlier in the week. It even made national news as syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin gave it coverage on her website.

No wonder increasing numbers of parents are taking their children out of the government schools, run by leftist ideologues and NEA unionists.

Obama’s czars: If you liked Van Jones, you’ll love John Holdren

Obama’s very red green jobs czar, Van Jones finally proved to be enough of an embarrassment, that he was taken off the White House roster in the wee hours of the morning a couple of weeks ago.

Following him out the door should be another of Obama’s top point people, skirting the senate confirmation process by being named as czars..er…“point people.“ This gem is science czar John Holdren.

WorldNetDaily reports that Holdren has argued in favor of involuntary birth-control measures, including forced sterilization, saying it may be necessary and morally acceptable under extreme conditions, such as widespread famine brought about by “climate change.”

A worldwide leftist agenda is emerging linking global population growth with global warming — arguing that climate change is such a severe crisis that the United States must participate in a United Nations mandate to implement global birth control in order to reduce carbon emissions.

Addressing the U.N. climate summit this week in New York, President Obama declared climate change resulting from global warming could leave future generations with an “irreversible catastrophe.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

Think twice before having your family photos developed at Walmart

We’ve all done it — innocently taken bath time photos of our young children

A Peoria, Arizona couple is suing after having had their three young daughters removed from their custody by state Child Protective Services after an overzealous Walmart employee found partially nude pictures of the girls on a camera memory stick taken to the store for processing.

The images in question were part of a group of dozens of photographs taken mostly on the family’s vacation in San Diego. Among the images were seven to eight bath and playtime photos of the girls that showed a “portion or outline or genitalia.” At the time of the incident the children were ages 1 ½, 4 and 5.

Walmart turned the photos over to police. The parents were not allowed to see their children for several days and did not regain custody for a month while the state investigated, according to their lawyer who called the incident “a serious incursion on people’s lives and privacy.”

 Neither parent was charged with sexual abuse and they eventually regained custody of their children.

Read the daily’s account of this bizarre overreach by clerks in a discount store, the state of Arizona, the City of Peoria and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

Has it come to the point where parents need to bring in witnesses when diapering their own children in order to protect themselves against allegations of sexual exploitation?

President Obama alters speech; tells kids to wash their hands, persevere

“Your ticket to success is not through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star.” 

His revised speech can be read here.

The tone and teaching guides have changed dramatically — in response to American outrage at the propagandizing of school children — since this address was covered last week.

Obama uses your children to sway elections to the left

USAToday reports that the Obama administration has launched Census in Schools, an all-out campaign targeting superintendents, principals, teachers, students and, indirectly, parents, as schools open across the nation. The message: The Census is coming and here’s why everyone should care. The program is even reaching down to preschoolers through ostensibly innocuous “Sesame Street” programming.

The goal is to send posters, teaching guides, maps and lesson plans to every school in the nation, Puerto Rico and U.S. island territories, to encourage full participation in the national count. The materials will arrive in over 118,000 schools and reach 56 million students.

“It’s great to reach the children because children are such strong voices in their homes,” says Renee Jefferson-Copeland, chief of the Census schools program. “In households that are linguistically isolated, they can express the information to their parents.”

“Linguistically isolated?”

Especially if they are illegal aliens — who are also scheduled to be included in the national headcount — which does far more than merely count people. The outcome of the tally will be reflected in an increased number of congressional districts. The Democrat controlled Congress and the Obama White House are mindful of the opportunity to swell their ranks.

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin writes: Open borders have profound consequences. And they don’t end with congressional apportionment. The redistribution of power extends to presidential elections because the Electoral College is pegged to the size of congressional delegations.

Malkin’s post on her blog today could not be more clear on the takeover agenda, as school children are being used to manipulate the 2010 U.S. Census.

A Mom gives the Republic a well-placed kick

Juxtaposed against an editorial questioning the worthiness of Arizona’s popular tuition tax-credit program, is an excellent letter from a mother named Karen Cooley, who vigorously defends the program. 

The Republic, espousing the education establishment’s anti-voucher, anti-Charter schools perspective, contends the “comfortable are benefited at the expense of the needy.” The mother tells her story from a decidedly different vantage point.

We invite you to read them both and make up your own minds.