Pro Life still a cornerstone of GOP base.

The Republican National Committee’s 100-page “autopsy” report in March, packed with recommendations for how the party can recover after its 2012 losses, did not make reference to abortion. “When it comes to social issues,” it stated, “the Party must in fact and deed be inclusive and welcoming. If we are not, we will limit our ability to attract young people and others, including many women, who agree with us on some but not all issues.”

Still, some GOP politicians are responding to the call of social conservatives to take a more aggressive stand on abortion — even as Democrats sound the alarm about a Republican “a war on women” and after Mitt Romney lost by double digits among female voters.

Next week the House will debate a bill that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks, even though the measure could never clear the Senate or receive the support of President Barack Obama.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely presidential candidate, is poised to sign a law requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before being allowed to go through with abortions. Ohio’s Republican legislature passed a budget last week aimed at making abortions more difficult.

And the Virginia GOP last month nominated E.W. Jackson, who has compared Planned Parenthood to the Klu Klux Klan, for lieutenant governor.

With the economy improving and turnout lower in midterm elections, evangelicals in town for the three-day faith conference warned that the party must give them reasons to mobilize in 2014.

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August 15 date for abortion lawsuit status conference.

A federal judge has set an Aug. 15 status conference in a lawsuit in which Mississippi’s only abortion clinic is fighting to remain open.

The suit, filed last summer, challenges a 2012 state law that requires each OB-GYN who does abortions at the clinic to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III ruled in April that the state can’t close Jackson Women’s Health Organization while the clinic still has a federal lawsuit pending.

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CHISHOLM: Mississippi has its own House of Horrors

BY: Dana Chisholm

Pennsylvania has been in the news for the grisly practices of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. But, Pennsylvania is not the only state with a House of Horrors. Mississippi has one, too. It functions in the name of Jackson Women’s Health Organization on North State Street Jackson.  Mississippi has its own Kermit Gosnell’s in Diane Derzis, owner of the clinic, and Bruce E.Norman, who flies in from out of state to perform abortions on Mississippi’s most vulnerable women.

There is a clear pattern. These are the same providers at “New Woman all Woman”, an Alabama clinic which was closed by the Alabama Department of Health following an incident where two women were overmedicated and taken to the hospital.  These same providers have chosen to operate as an unlicensed abortion facility in Alabama and are being sued by the state.

We commend the Mississippi Department of Health for inspecting and finding the violations they have found at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The clinic touts “new ownership” since some of these violations occurred. However, the same people are managing the clinic. Nothing has changed, and women are still in danger.

Among some of the Health Department findings:

•                 2009 found medical waste including the remains of the dismembered babies (fetuses) in cardboard boxes located in a room next to the recovery rooms for two weeks at room temperature. 
•                 Bloodstained furnishings. 
•                 Facility had a leaking roof and inadequate staffing.

These types of conditions for a medical facility cannot be allowed to stand. Women’s lives are at risk.

Gov. Phil Bryant and our Legislators have championed women’s health care in Mississippi with the passage of House Bill 1390 last year.  This law raises the benchmark of women’s health care to a higher level.  All women should receive the best health protection possible.  HB 1390 would protect women from the House of Horrors here in Jackson, like those we have seen in Pennsylvania, Texas, and around the country.

We want to stop the war on women that occurs through poor health regulations and lack of enforcement of existing ones. U. S. District Court Judge Daniel Jordan has allowed JWHO to continue to operate despite the legislature’s attempt to protect the women of Mississippi.

Judge Jordan has allowed this senseless destruction of women’s health to continue by issuing two temporary restraining orders after the State Department of Health revoked JWHO’s license for failure to comply with the law.

All free-standing medical clinics must adhere to similar stringent guidelines to protect their patients. We are asking for nothing less than the best possible health care for the female citizens in the state of Mississippi.

We plead with Judge Jordan to allow the enforcement of the law enacted by HB1390 effective July, 2012.  This law does not stop abortions; it simply protects the women who choose abortion.

Every day this continues, women remain at risk.

About Dana: Dana Chisholm is President of Pro-Life Mississippi. Contact her at plm@prolifemississipp.org

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• Kermit Gosnell and his House of Horrors: The Verdict (tattooedliberty.wordpress.com)
• Wife says shes sorry for trusting Philly abortion doctor (pottsmerc.com)
• Another abortion ‘house of horrors’ in TX… (dailymail.co.uk)
• Woman gets probation in Philly abortion clinic case (pottsmerc.com)
• Is Gosnell’s ‘House of Horrors’ a Glimpse into the Future? (blackamericaweb.com)

Jackson abortion clinic owner under fire in Alabama for abortions performed without a license.

The State of Alabama issued a more than 70-page report last year accusing the New Woman All Women clinic of violating numerous rules, including making errors in delivering medication to patients and failing to ensure that staff was properly trained to provide safe patient care. The state said the clinic failed to ensure that physicians had proper documentation showing they were qualified to perform abortions.

While clinic operators reached an agreement with health officials to close down in April 2012, state officials say it continued operating. The clinic’s website offered details on abortions, including prices for various options, on Thursday, and a worker answered the phone.

The Birmingham clinic was run for years by Diane Derzis, who is fighting Mississippi officials over their attempt to shut down her Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state’s only abortion clinic.

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Div. of Medicaid reverses decision over at risk pregnancy program.

Mississippi Medicaid officials will resume paying state Health Department workers to help women with high-risk pregnancies.

The agreement, announced Friday, starts June 1 and runs through June 30, 2014. Medicaid has typically paid the Health Department more than $8.5 million a year for the program.

The new agreement reverses last month’s decision by the Health Department to lay off 82 social workers. The Division of Medicaid had shifted the program to its two private managed care contractors in December, and Health Department officials said in April they had nothing else for the social workers to do. Almost 100 other Health Department workers, many of whom spent only part of their time on the high-risk pregnancy program, were shifted to other duties.

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Gov. Bryant asks leaders in Hattiesburg for help in addressing teen pregnancy.

Map of Mississippi highlighting Lamar County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gov. Phil Bryant visited Hattiesburg on Wednesday to call community groups, educators and business leaders to action to stop teen pregnancy in Mississippi.

Bryant spoke to those constituencies during a Community Town Hall Meeting at the Train Depot, sponsored by the University of Mississippi Medical Center and his Healthy Teens for a Better Mississippi Initiative.

“Times are difficult for children and especially today for teenagers,” Bryant told the group of about 100 people. “And it is only being made more difficult if they become a parent.”

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2010, Mississippi was No. 1 in the nation with the highest rate of births to teen mothers, ages 15 to 19, at 55 births per 1,000 teens. The national rate was 34.3 per 1,000 teens.

Bryant made reducing Mississippi’s teen pregnancy rate a priority of his administration when he became governor. He issued a directive to the state Department of Human Services and the state Department of Health to develop a plan for preventing and reducing teen pregnancy.

He appointed a 170-member Teen Pregnancy Prevention Task Force of government, community, faith-based, non-profit and youth leaders to develop the Healthy Teens for a Better Mississippi Initiative to reduce and prevent births to teen mothers.

Bryant said it’s time to get the truth out about what it’s like to be a teen parent.

“These children must know how much more difficult their lives will be if they are trying to raise a child,” he said. “The real story is that the teenage child who gets pregnant is so far from success.”

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• Teen Pregnancy Rate On Decline (lasvegas.cbslocal.com)
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• Teen Pregnancy On The Rise (guardianlv.com)

Governor signs bill regulating abortion inducing drugs.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant has signed a bill that regulates the prescription and use of abortion-inducing drugs.

He signed Senate Bill 2795 on Thursday, and it becomes law July 1.

It says a physician must be present when a woman takes drugs prescribed to end a pregnancy in its early weeks. It also says the woman must have a follow-up physical examination two weeks later.

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Here We Go Again: Personhood, Part II.

Those pushing a proposed amendment to the Mississippi constitution that would define life as beginning at conception are now ready to begin collecting signatures.

The proposal, which will be known as Initiative Measure No. 41, is similar to the Personhood initiative voters rejected by 58 percent in November 2011, but the language differs somewhat.

The amendment would end abortion in the state, and disagreements exist about how it could affect other issues related to reproduction, including various forms of contraception, in vitro fertilization and treatment related to risky pregnancies.

Ann Reed of New Albany sponsored the measure, which has since been approved and given a ballot title and summary by the Mississippi attorney general’s office.

The title assigned to the measure is: “Should the Mississippi Constitution be amended to state that the right to life as a person begins at conception?”

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• Plunkett: Another round of Personhood is a bad deal for conservatives (MississippiPEP.com)
• Personhood Mississippi seeks second statewide vote on anti-abortion proposal (rawstory.com)
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Judge says abortion clinic may remain open during challenge to new law.

U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III on Monday extended an injunction he issued several months ago, which blocks the state from closing the clinic as it tries to fulfill a 2012 state law.

The law requires all OB-GYNs who do abortions at the clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

Jordan’s ruling comes three days before the state Department of Health was scheduled to hold a license revocation hearing for the clinic over its self-acknowledged inability to get the admitting privileges.

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Legislature passes bill requiring safer administration of abortion inducing drugs.

A bill headed to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant says a physician would have to be present when a woman takes abortion-inducing drugs.

Senate Bill 2795 also says the woman would have to return to the doctor’s office two weeks later for a follow-up examination.

With little explanation and no debate, the Senate passed the final version of the bill 46-6 on Wednesday. The House passed it 84-30 Friday.

Supporters say the bill is designed to prevent the practice of the drugs being administered by someone from a remote location while communicating by phone or webcam.

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