And where exactly is that constitutional right to privacy, Judge?

Taking questions at her confirmation hearing today Supreme Court aspirant Sonia Sotomayor says she considers the question of abortion rights “settled law” and asserts there is a constitutional right to privacy.

She obviously reads the same version of the Constitution that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a former ACLU attorney, has tucked away in her chambers.

In responding to questions on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling legalizing abortion, Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee “there is a right of privacy” –  that the court has found it in “various places in the Constitution.”  Specifically she says the right is stated in the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and in the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection of the law.

The often reversed appeals court judge Sotomayor said that “all precedents of the Supreme Court I consider settled law.”

During Ginsburg’s 1993 confirmation hearing, she provided a strong and unequivocal defense of a woman’s right to abortion, saying it was based on the Constitution’s explicit guarantee of equal protection — as well as an “unstated right of privacy.“

“It is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision maker, that her choice be controlling,” Judge Ginsburg told the Senate Judiciary Committee at that time.  “If you impose restraints, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex. The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.”

No word from Ginsburg on the full equity of the pre-born human infant or its father.

Pro-life legislation gets nod from Gov. Brewer

The daily glumly calls them “restrictions on abortion rights.” 

We cheer HB2564, the Abortion Consent Act, signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer, which implements a variety of changes to statutes related to abortion – including modifying the existing parental notification and judicial bypass requirements that apply when a minor is seeking an abortion.

The law sets new requirements that physicians must follow when obtaining written informed consent of patients seeking abortions. It also allows certain health professionals to abstain from having to facilitate or participate in an abortion or provide abortion medication.

Former Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat and abortion advocate, had vetoed all pro-life bills sent to her.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Channeling Margaret Sanger

CNSNews carries an excellent analysis of  this interview to be published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is quoted as saying she thought the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion was predicated on the Supreme Court majority’s desire to diminish “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, called those she regarded as inferior, “human weeds,” and advocated for the cessation of charity — referring to “medical and nursing facilities for slum mothers as insidiously injurious,” and urged the sterilization of “genetically inferior races.”

Watch video here.

Not all in Democrat Party have sold out to abortion lobby

Nineteen pro-life House Democrats have signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressing their opposition to any health care reform that includes abortion funding.

“We cannot support any health-care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan. Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly (are) unacceptable.

We want to ensure that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee cannot recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of benefits package. Without an explicit exclusion, abortion could be included in a government subsidized health care plan under general health care,” they wrote.

The letter was signed by Reps. Dan Boren (D-Okla.), Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Tim Holden (D-Pa.), Travis Childers (D-Miss.), Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), Mike Mclntyre (D-N.C.),Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), James Oberstar (D-Minn.), Bobby Bright (D-Ala.), Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Charlie Melancon (D-La.),  John Murtha (D-Pa.), Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.), and Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-Pa.).

Taxpayer dollars are already going toward programs that fund abortion. Planned Parenthood alone consumes about $349 million a year in federal and state tax subsidies, CNS News reports.

Abortions! Abortions! Get your free abortions here!!

Just when you thought you’ve heard it all…

In what was obviously an ideal way to honor abortionist George Tiller’s “memory and legacy,” the Philadelphia Women’s Center gave away free abortions yesterday. When not offering to kill babies without charge, the center conveniently offers payment information.

The chillingly bizarre giveaway occurred as Tiller’s family announced the closing his facility in Wichita, Kansas — which specialized in third-trimester abortions. The closing leaves just two clinics performing the gruesome late-term abortions still open in the United States.

Tiller was murdered in church last Sunday by an extremist with a history of mental problems.

“We are proud of the service and courage shown by our husband and father and know that women’s healthcare needs have been met because of his dedication and service,” the family said in the statement. “That is a legacy that will never die. The family will honor Dr. Tiller’s memory through private charitable activities,” as reported by Jillian Bandes on Townhall.

Seeing Red AZ has previously posted on the homicide and the MSM coverage of it here and here.

Republic’s Valdez blames faith-based community for Tiller murder

In typical Linda Valdez fashion, her tackling of the issues surrounding the death of abortionist George Tiller, skews the facts. 

Yes, abortion is legal, a point made in her opinion piece.  Third-trimester abortion, however, is infanticide, a fact she conveniently ignores.  She joins those who lay blame for the murder of George Tiller squarely at the feet of the faith-based community — which has forcefully condemned the violent act.

In Valdez’s view, Scott Roeder, the man who pulled the trigger, is absolved as being a madman who was incited to his depraved act by those with religious convictions who believe in the sanctity of life. Tiller, one of only a few nationwide who engage in the gruesome practice of late-term abortions, was merely providing “legal medical services.”

 So religion is the culprit. The wanton destruction of perfectly formed seventh, eight and ninth-month human babies killed for money, gets a pass as “women’s reproductive rights,” and “terrorism aimed at women who dare to believe their bodies are their own.”

While Valdez oddly quotes the bible to make her point that words matter and provoked Roeder, she missed this one: Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. – Psalm 127:3

There is no quarrel with her assertion that Tiller’s death was “cold-blooded murder.” What she refuses to acknowledge is that this was a subject with which the doctor had more than a nodding acquaintance.

Valdez’s bizarre commentary can be read here.

Carrying on third-trimester abortions as a memorial to George Tiller

LeRoy Carhart, 67, has expressed his desire to provide third-trimester abortions as a memorial to his friend and colleague of more than 20 years, George Tiller.  Kansas authorities charged 51-year-old Scott Roeder with first-degree murder in Tiller’s death.

Carhart, who only performs third-term abortions, has regularly traveled from Nebraska to Kansas for a few days each month.  Since Tiller’s death, his family has shuttered his abortion site, so the Nebraska doctor no longer has a facility to perform infanticide.

Carhart is notorious for having twice appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge bans on partial-birth abortions. He is unable to perform the gruesome procedure past the 22nd week of pregnancy in his own clinic, Abortion & Contraception Clinic of Nebraska, due to restrictions in Nebraska law.

He decries the fact that there are fewer than 10 doctors who perform third-trimester abortions in the United States. Although he has worked with younger physicians before, he hasn’t trained any abortionists in third-trimester “techniques” for at least five years, he says.

Another M. D. who performs third-trimester abortions, 70-year-old  Warren Hern of Boulder, Colorado, said he’s also concerned there won’t be enough doctors trained to perform late-term abortions in the future.

So committed is Carhart to his practice of infanticide, he vowed to reopen his friend’s Kansas clinic and continue Tiller’s mission. But on Tuesday, Tiller’s family said there were no plans to reopen. Carhart said he remains hopeful that Tiller’s family will change their minds. If not, he hopes another abortionist will open a clinic in Kansas where he can work part-time.

The Nebraska doctor said he’s determined to continue doing what he does. “You have to live by your principles,” he says.

Pro-life community is blameless in death of Tiller

Wouldn’t you just guess that the Arizona Republic, taking a leaf from the Keith Olbermann book of leftwing nuttiness, would use its editorial page to lay blame on the pro-life community for the shooting death of George Tiller, the Kansas doctor specializing in gruesome second and third trimester abortions. Watch Olbermann’s shocking video in which he blames the shooting on FOX News and Bill O’Reilly.

Blame should rightly be placed squarely on the unhinged shooter, 51-year-old, Scott Roeder.

But the editorial proclaims that the entire pro-life community is insincere when issuing “condemnations” while “barely cloaking their glee.“ It goes on to state: “If genuinely pro-life opponents of abortion are to retain the stature they deserve, condemning the violence does not suffice. They need to start condemning the radical, bloody-minded activists among them.”

The editorialist deplores the fact that Randall Terry described Tiller as “a mass murderer and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed,” and so concludes that Terry’s words infer that those who value life can “barely hide their bloodlust, and by a tone of voice that barely conceals their enthusiastic approval of murder, extremists at the fringe of the pro-life movement are inciting violence. They are mocking the very virtue they claim to celebrate: the sanctity of life.”

Murderers don’t hang signs around their necks declaring their intentions.  The same can’t be said of abortionists who advertise their skill at infanticide.

Controversial life, shocking death

Late-term abortion specialist, Dr. George Tiller, was shot and killed today in the Wichita, Kansas Reformation Lutheran Church where he was an usher. A suspect is in custody.

Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services clinic, is one of only three such facilities nationally where abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy. Tiller advertised second and third trimester abortions as his specialty since 1973. It was to his clinic that Arizona’s “Jackie Doe,” a 14-year-old ward of the state, was flown for a very late-term abortion amidst a flurry of news reports and legal actions in the summer of 1999.

In March of this year, Tiller was acquitted of 19 misdemeanor counts in a jury trial.  He was indicted after an investigation begun by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Prosecutors charged that Tiller had gotten second opinions from a doctor who was essentially an employee of his, not independent as state law requires. 

“I am stunned by this lawless and violent act, which must be condemned and should be met with the full force of law,” Kline said in a written statement. “We join in lifting prayer that God’s grace and presence rest with Dr. Tiller’s family and friends.”

Pro-life advocates denounced the shooting and stressed that they support only nonviolent protest.

BHO’s Vatican ambassador supported pro-abortion Sebelius as Health Secretary

President Barack H. Obama, our nation’s most radically pro-abortion president, has selected Catholic theologian Miguel H. Diaz, as his ambassador to the Vatican.

In 1999 Obama was the only Illinois State Senator to oppose the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, a bill intended to provide medical care to babies born alive after a botched abortion.

In choosing Professor Diaz to be the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Obama has selected a man who supported Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Sebelius is so extreme on abortion that she has been publicly criticized by the last three archbishops in Kansas City, Kansas. In fact, when the current archbishop, Joseph F. Naumann, asked her to name a single instance in 30 years of public service where she supported restrictions on abortion, she could not name one. Her answer gave rise to his decision to request that she not present herself for Communion.

It is an indefensible argument to say that it is morally acceptable to promote abortion-reducing public policies while jettisoning all legal remedies. If we applied this same logic to racial discrimination, no one would regard someone who worked to reduce the incidence of discrimination while abandoning all legal strategies as a bona-fide opponent of racism. Both approaches would be demanded.

The Democrat party clearly shows itself to be so rabidly pro-abortion, that out of the entire country it is unable to offer a candidate to represent the U.S. to the Vatican who is unequivocally opposed to abortion-on-demand.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue, comments here.