Idaho Planned Parenthood celebrated its victory over the opposition this past weekend with a cocktail party, a propaganda film and a tour of its Twin Falls office. The celebration was held to commemorate five years since they first expanded outside the Boise market.

We were involved in organizing protests of that decision, working with many families in the Magic Valley to protect the community from this expansion of America’s abortion empire. Unfortunately, that effort failed to stop Planned Parenthood’s expansion. This sad turn was largely due to the failure of the Magic Valley’s spiritual leadership to recognize Planned Parenthood’s serious threat to families and children.

After five years of operation, it is hoped that the clergy have at least learned about the pernicious influence Planned Parenthood wields among the vulnerable. Unfortunately, much of that influence remains hidden and difficult to document.

We note, for instance, that Idaho’s abortion rate continues to rise – a trend line which defies national experience, and which closely parallels Planned Parenthood’s expansion into the Magic Valley. While that office does not, purportedly, perform abortions on site – it is a short drive to their killing rooms in Boise. And we have always believed that the real objective for expanding into the Magic Valley was to widen the potential customer base for Planned Parenthood’s premier business product. PP head Rebecca Poedy claims success there, too: She tells the Times-News that they have hands-on contact with some 1000 women each year.

Rather than celebrate with whoopee cushions, booze and perverse films – we choose to mark their five years with a sober recognition that many lives have been destroyed, others seriously damaged, by the poison pedaled by Dr. Kevin Kraal, Rebecca Poedy and other champions of Planned Parenthood.

And we pray that Poedy’s threat to open yet another recruiting center in Idaho – in Pocatello or Lewiston – by 2009 will be unrealized.

WorldNetDaily carried a fascinating story the other day about a two-year old study financed by the Environmental Protection Agency which found that fish and other aquatic life in Colorado streams were being “genetically re-engineered” by hormones flushed into Boulder sewer systems.

Scientists at the University of Colorado found that the hormones were having a tremendous impact on fish reproduction: When they randomly caught 123 trout in streams down river from the Bolder sewer plant, they were “scared” by their findings: 12 of the fish were male, 101 were female and 10 were “intersex” fish with both male and female features.

University of Colorado biologist John Woodling told the Denver Post during an interview that the appearance of such unnatural specimens, “is the first thing I’ve seen as a scientist that really scared me”. Their research found that the sexual anomalies were the result of heavy estrogen and other steroid hormones from birth control pills and patches that ultimately end up in the area waters after being excreted as urine into the city’s sewer system.

The article says that this kind of bizarre development can be found in waters across the United States. In fact, traces of birth control hormones were found in New Jersey’s drinking water as early as 2003.

And, yet, virtually no public outcry has been heard from the environmental activists who have wrecked such havoc on America’s economy.

Betty Ball of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center told WorldNetDaily that people should eat organic foods. But she wasn’t interested in a campaign to clean water of hormones, because such an effort “gets into the bedroom”.

It appears that even pollution can be categorized as “politically incorrect”.

In the meantime, one has to wonder about the health effects as this potentially serious problem is swept under the rug by Big Media and Planned Parenthood’s legions.

This article is authored by Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD, and is entitled, "Get the Government Out of Sex Ed". It was provided to us by our colleagues at the American Life League:

If you need an operation and the doctor tells you that overall, seven-eighths of patients have a successful outcome, you might think that was a pretty good deal. But suppose the operation failed. While you’re in the recovery room, the doctor tells you, “Oh, by the way, for people like you, the operation only succeeds 30 percent of the time. But we’ll sell you the solution to the botched operation.” You’d be furious. You’d sue that doctor for malpractice if you didn’t punch him first.

Yet this is precisely the situation Congress supports by funding Planned Parenthood and its allies to provide “comprehensive sex education” in secondary schools.

This is no exaggeration. Look at contraceptive failure rates, using Planned Parenthood’s own data. Two studies, (listed below, with web site addresses) use this definition of contraceptive failure: the percentage of women who experience a pregnancy at the end of one year of using a particular contraceptive method. Somewhere between 12 percent and 13 percent of all contracepting women experienced a pregnancy within a year. In other words, about seven-eighths of women use contraceptives successfully. Two of the most commonly used and widely promoted methods are oral contraceptives and the male condom. Of all women using the pill for one year, somewhere around 8 percent will experience a pregnancy. Between 14 percent and 15 percent of women who use the condom will become pregnant within a year.

But these statistics, while technically correct, don’t tell the whole story, not by a long shot. These are the “overall” statistics that our hypothetical doctor used in our opening story. The “for people like you” statistics paint a very different picture. These studies break down the population into age groups, income levels, marital status and race. A poor cohabiting teenager using the pill has a failure rate of 48.4 percent. You read that correctly: nearly half of poor cohabiting teenagers get pregnant during their first year using the pill. If she kicked her boyfriend out of the house, or if she married him, her probability of pregnancy drops to 12.9 percent. At the other extreme, a middle-aged, middle-class married woman has a 3 percent chance of getting pregnant after a year on the pill. Over 70 percent of poor, cohabiting teenagers using condoms will be pregnant within a year. By contrast, the middle-aged, middle-class married woman has a 6 percent chance of pregnancy after a year of condom use.

These figures cast new light on the debate over contraception education. The commonly quoted failure rates of 8 percent for the pill and 15 percent for the condom are inflated by the highly successful use by middle-aged, middle-class married couples. Yet, the government promotes contraception most heavily among the young, the poor and the single. The “overall failure rates” are simply not relevant to this target population. Planned Parenthood and its allies in the sex education business have had conniptions over federal funding for abstinence education. But at least abstinence actually works. If you don’t have sex, you won’t get pregnant. It works every time.

With contraception, we can absolutely predict that some sexual encounters will result in pregnancy. The young, the poor and the unmarried are the most likely to experience a contraceptive failure. For these groups, pregnancy is not a rare accident, but highly likely. When the inevitable pregnancy occurs, guess who is ready to help solve her problem? That’s right: Planned Parenthood will sell her an abortion. The same people who teach sex education, which increases the demand for purchasing contraception, also sell the “solution” to contraceptive failure, which is abortion. Yet the federal government spends about $12 on contraceptive-related programs to every $1 spent on abstinence education. We don’t give federal grants to tobacco companies to teach students “low-risk” forms of smoking on the grounds that “kids are going to smoke anyway.” We shouldn’t be giving federal grants to groups that sell contraception, to teach kids to use contraception.

It is time for the federal government to get out of the sex education business once and for all.

For further research:

"Contraceptive Failure in the First Two Years of Use: Differences Across Socioeconomic Subgroups,” Nalini Ranjit, Akinrinola Bankole, Jacqueline E. Darroch and Susheela Singh. Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 33, No. 1. January/February 2001, pp. 19-27.

“Contraceptive Failure Rates: New Estimates From the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth,” Haisahn Fu, Jacqueline E. Darroch, Taylor Haas, and Nalini Ranjit, Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 31, No. 2. March/April 1999, pp. 56-63.

Yesterday’s posting about Matt Salisbury prompted the young candidate to call us to clarify his position on abortion. Regardless of quotations or press stories in which Mr. Salisbury uses Planned Parenthood’s language about abortion rights – he claims he is both pro-Life and a Christian.

I believe him on both counts, and appreciate his phone call. Certainly he is not the first politician to be manhandled by the press into appearing as something he is not.

But this does not exactly settle the matter. I am mystified that Mr. Salisbury has chosen to anchor his campaign message in the philosophy of Planned Parenthood – you know, the rhetoric which claims that “the government has no business in our bedrooms”. Apparently it has something to do with his belief that Christians in public life ought not be very explicit about imposing our faith upon others. As the campaign develops he will have opportunity to better express his ideas.

We also know nothing about Mr. Salisbury's position on specific policy questions. That may be where we will find the conflict. But on the phone, he was adamant that he found abortion "abhorrent".

In any event, the biggest question that nags is why Mr. Salisbury is running at all. The media’s original description of his candidacy explained he was unhappy with Congressman Sali’s pro-Life politics. After our phone conversation yesterday, it seems that is not the issue. So now I’m left wondering why a pro-Life person would squander resources and enhance Democrat chances for taking the seat by challenging an incumbent with an unmatched pro-Life record.

It is very curious, and perhaps we will learn more about motivations as Mr. Salisbury refines his message in coming months.

But we can at least take comfort in the knowledge that President Lincoln's sleep will not be disturbed by this challenger.

A press release reported by Boise’s KTVB late last week says that Nampa resident Matt Salisbury will challenge Congressman Bill Sali in next year’s GOP Primary.

We don’t know this gentlemen, but the press release describes him as a decorated veteran of the Airborne Rangers. He has also seen active duty in Iraq with the National Guard. Before saying anything else about his campaign – let us give thanks for his bravery and service to nation.
Mr. Salisbury’s honorable battlefield experience does not, however, qualify him as a candidate for Congress.

It is obvious from his opening statement that he is committed to defending abortion rights in this country. This is perhaps his primary reason for running. He goes so far as to say that “government should stay out of our bedrooms”. That suggests he may also be a defender of gay rights and other social aberrations – but we’ll have to see what else he has to say.

We are most troubled, however, by his claim to be a “Lincoln Republican”. Someone must rise to defend the late President’s honor from modern social radicals who would cloak their agendas in his legitimizing mantle. (The gay rights crowd has long maligned Abraham Lincoln’s memory by organizing themselves as the “Log Cabin Republicans” – for reasons totally beyond a coherent retelling here).

There is absolutely nothing in the public record to support the notion that President Lincoln, were he alive today, would be a champion of abortion rights. If anything, his articulation of the proper and moral role of government qualify him for title as “First Pro-Life President of the Republic”.

Many of us in the Pro-Life Movement read his speeches and courageous indictment of slavery as succor in our struggle against the destruction of God’s Little Ones. In the face of great opposition, Lincoln eventually molded the Civil War into a great moral struggle against evil; he led a bloody defense of the dignity of each human being.

Mr. Salisbury is entitled to his views on abortion – which views disqualify him for public office. But we hope that he quickly ends his campaign to malign the memory of Mr. Lincoln.

WorldNetDaily recently posted a story out of York, Pennsylvania, detailing a conspiracy by police and city officials there to prevent pro-Lifers from conducting protests and prayer vigils at the local Planned Parenthood clinic. Over the past five years, dozens of pro-Lifers have been arrested by police for crimes ranging from trespassing to disorderly conduct.

None of the charges have resulted in convictions. But the campaign of harassment and intimidation has led a group of pro-Lifers to file a federal lawsuit against the York Police Department, claiming that their right to peaceful assembly and free speech are being systematically denied by local authorities.

In addition to unspecified damages, the lawsuit seeks a court’s order to the police department that it end its harassment.

The WorldNetDaily story also details a number of assaults against protesters at the Planned Parenthood facility – several of which involve the use of vehicles as deadly weapons. One incident involved an 18-wheel semi truck, which jumped the curb in an attempt to run over a pro-Life protester. While police looked on, the protester jumped to safety. The officers failed to pursue the truck driver, but they did arrest the protester because he landed on Planned Parenthood’s property. Charges of “criminal trespass” against the victim were eventually dismissed by a court when video of the incident was produced.

Most of the arrests have been conducted by off-duty York policeman, who moonlight at the Planned Parenthood clinic as a way to subsidize their incomes. They are reportedly paid $37.50 per hour to serve as security guards at the clinic; under a special arrangement between Planned Parenthood and city officials, the officers are allowed to wear their uniforms while working for the abortion industry’s giant.

We observed in our last posting that it was likely a deal had been struck between notorious abortionist George Tiller and Kansas’ compromised Attorney General, Paul Morrison. It was our guess that Morrison would seek some package of fines and allow Tiller to go along on his merry way, performing late abortions on viable children without fear of further scrutiny or sanction.
As bad as that scenario is, information has since surfaced which strongly indicate something more evil is afoot.

A press release published by Operation Rescue says that George Tiller has already filed a lawsuit against the State of Kansas, charging that the law he is alleged to have broken is unconstitutional. Specifically, Tiller is going to court in hopes that he can convince a federal judge that it is unconstitutional for the state to require him to use an independent doctor when determining whether a late term abortion is necessary because the mother’s health is at serious risk.

The Operation Rescue press release says that they view this move as little more than a stalling tactic by Tiller. But we see something more injurious to the national pro-Life movement here.

The defendant in this action will, naturally, be the State of Kansas, as represented by its Attorney General, Paul Morrison. He is an avowed abortion advocate and friend of George Tiller. In fact, Morrison owes his election in large part to the massive financial support he received last fall from none other than the notorious abortionist himself. We can anticipate, therefore, a tepid defense of the state’s late-term abortion law – if a defense is offered at all. We could not profess shock if Morrison shows up in court only to offer the view that he agrees with the plaintiff!

A hint of this collusion can be found in the OR press release, which says that “Morrison admitted to the Associated Press earlier today that such a challenge by Tiller was expected”.

Operation Rescue believes that the Kansas law has already been upheld in large part by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1992 Casey decision. We shall see. Further research is needed to determine the parallels. But even if the language from Pennsylvania and Kansas is identical, there is plenty of room for mischief – given the Attorney General’s support for Tiller’s agenda. It is not unheard of (especially here in the 9th Circuit) for district and appeals courts to simply ignore Supreme Court precedent on the theory that odds are small they will ever be held accountable by the high court.

Watch for the ACLU and Planned Parenthood to surface in this situation. And be prepared for Tiller to win some early legal victories.

In a victory of sorts, pro-abort Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison announced late last week that he was going to allow 19 criminal charges to be filed against notorious late term abortionist George Tiller. All of the charges are misdemeanors and are apparently related to Tiller’s systematic use of an employee as his “consulting physician” when committing abortions against viable babies in the womb.

In making his announcement, AG Morrison tried to downplay the significance of his decision to proceed against Tiller, describing the abortionist’s violation of Kansas law as merely “technical”. (When proceeding with a late term abortion, an abortionist in that state must obtain the concurrence of a second doctor in finding that a material health threat to the mother exists).
This is the latest twist in a long and disturbing morality play that has been on stage in Kansas for over two years.

Former Attorney General Phill Kline attempted to charge Dr. Tiller with some 30 criminal counts of performing illegal abortions on viable preborn children – but the notorious abortionist has a legion of defenders within the Kansas legal profession, including judges, prosecuting attorneys and Mr. Morrison himself. In fact, Morrison defeated Kline last year with huge bags of money provided by the abortionist Tiller.

In watching these developments closely over the past several years, we can only conclude that the evidence of Tiller’s misconduct before AG Morrison must be overwhelming – too massive for even this corrupt public official to sweep under the rug. We smell a deal in the works, one in which Tiller agrees to pay some substantial fines while his death machine remains unimpaired.