Much has been written in recent years about Margaret Sanger’s “Negro Project.” The most recent article is a must-read for every pro-lifer. An excerpt of Michelle Malkin’s column:

“If you aren’t creeped out by the No Birth Control Left Behind rhetoric of the White House and Planned Parenthood, you aren’t listening closely enough. The anesthetic of progressive benevolence always dulls the senses. Wake up.

“When a bunch of wealthy white women and elite Washington bureaucrats defend the trampling of religious liberties in the name of ‘increased access’ to ‘reproductive services’ for ‘poor’ women, the ghost of Margaret Sanger is cackling.

“As she wrote in her autobiography, Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1916 ‘to stop the multiplication of the unfit.’ This, she boasted, would be ‘the most important and greatest step towards race betterment.’ While she oversaw the mass murder of black babies, Sanger cynically recruited minority activists to front her death racket. She conspired with eugenics financier and businessman Clarence Gamble to ‘hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities‘ to sell their genocidal policies as community health and welfare services.

“Outright murder wouldn’t sell. But wrapping it under the egalitarian cloak of ‘women’s health’ — and adorning it with the moral authority of black churches — would. Sanger and Gamble called their deadly campaign ‘The Negro Project.’”

Ditto…what she said.

Every day you faced the questions
Torn by the lot you had received
Every tear was a reminder
Of how I was conceived.

But in the middle of the confusion
You found strength to make it through
And now I can love and be loved
All because of you

The Man

Ryan Bomberger tears up when he recites the lyrics to “Meant to Be,” a song he wrote as a tribute to his birth mother—a woman he’s never met. The man behind the controversial pro-life billboard campaign, Too Many Aborted, was conceived in rape. His birth mother was white, and the rapist was black. Despite the circumstances of his conception, his mother allowed him to live.

Bomberger was born in Pennsylvania in 1971, two years before the U.S. Supreme Court declared a “right to privacy” to abort in Roe v. Wade. In the late 1960s, however, states began allowing abortions in cases of rape, incest, and health of the mother or fetus. Prior to Roe, some states even allowed abortion on demand, including neighboring state New York. If Bomberger’s birth mother had wanted an abortion, the option was available. But she chose life.

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about how much life is a gift,” Bomberger said in a telephone interview. “I can’t help but think about my biological mother’s decision, the reverberation…that’s like a powerful, resurging thought in my mind every day, and that’s no exaggeration.”

The first child adopted by a white Christian family, Bomberger said he tried to find his birth mother in 2004 just to thank her, but was unable to locate her. “I still believe that some day, some way, she’ll be able to hear those words of gratitude. Her decision put me in a family. It’s a very different kind of family. An amazing, loving family.”

Bomberger called his parents “two of the most remarkable people in the world.” They had a heart for adoption even before they married. His adoptive mother’s parents were divorced, and her father was an alcoholic. “She was placed in an orphanage as a young child, and she made a promise to God at the age of five that she’d be a mommy to kids who didn’t have one.”

Ten adopted and three natural children later, the Bombergers were a multiracial assortment that made the Jolie-Pitt family look like amateurs, with American Indian, Vietnamese, black/white, white, and black children. “People look at us like we’re some kind of freak show,” he said, laughing. “‘What is this?’ This is family. This is what it looks like.”

While the media hype celebrities who adopt transracially, Bomberger said, there’s a different level of sacrifice when you don’t know where the next check or meal is going to come from. But his parents felt they were called to adopt.

“They could have had a life of convenience,” he said. “Our family owns a department store, and they could have had a cushy sort of life, but instead they have thirteen children. There were lots of hand-me-downs, handed down hand-me-downs…they really understood what sacrifice was…they knew that adoption was a way of unleashing purpose, and our family was transformed by that. It was transformed culturally and in so many other ways, because of the beautiful act of adoption.”

Bomberger and his wife share this calling. He adopted his wife’s daughter, and the couple gave birth to two children, adopted another, and are considering adding a fifth child to the family through adoption.

The Life-Affirming Work

Bomberger and his wife started a non-profit organization called the Radiance Foundation, which he said grew out of their desire to help people embrace their own God-given purpose. It also reflects their desire to help people understand they have an intrinsic value and worth that no one can define or take away.

“The reason why we felt so strongly about that is because both my wife, Bethany, and I had gone through some really radical, personal destructive episodes in our lives. We were basically pulled out of our own self-destruction by God’s love and the hope that can come only by truth.”

Bomberger said he went through periods of self-loathing that nearly took his life. “My radical transformations came by relying on the very, very frayed thread of hope because of the faith my parents instilled in me. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here today.”

A long-time adoption and pro-life advocate, Bomberger wanted to expand his part-time efforts into full time. He said there was something missing in other pro-life campaigns: abortion’s disparate impact on the black community. The former creative director for motion graphics broadcast media parlayed his skills and resources into starting a comprehensive organization that creates campaigns like the billboards. One of his billboards depicts a black child and the words Black Children Are An Endangered Species.

“We had no idea that our first billboard campaign would take hold the way it would and get the kind of media reaction it did,” he said. Some people asked why he focuses on abortion among blacks. “I always compare it to breast cancer awareness.”

Although men and women get breast cancer, the disease impacts women the most. Abortion kills unborn babies, regardless of race or sex, but it’s impossible to ignore or to gloss over the fact that black women have abortions at higher rates (between three and five times higher) than women of other races and ethnicities.

Bomberger’s work has attracted support from such pro-life advocates as Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Rev. Walter Hoye, president of the Issues4Life Foundation; Arnold M. Culbreath, urban outreach director of Protecting Black Life; and Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union.

“I didn’t know anybody in the pro-life establishment,” he said. “That was pretty powerful to get that kind of positive feedback and reaction from people who believe not just the messaging but were willing, in what others were calling provocative and controversial…to put their faces and their words behind it to endorse it.”

Bomberger has received thousands of positive e-mail from everyday people of different races thanking him for his work in the pro-life and adoption movements. “We speak to several hundred thousand people a year at various events and conferences…and to get the incredible feedback is very encouraging, knowing that we’re connecting to people, that we’re moving people, that we’re inspiring people. It makes all of our efforts—and all the denunciations from liberal groups like the NAACP and ACLU—worthwhile.”

Bomberger v. NPR

Bomberger’s billboard campaign led to an NPR “debate” between him and Rev. Carlton Veazey, president and CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, formerly known as the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. He said he’d approached several key pro-abortion leaders to debate, and they continually turned him down. He didn’t reach out to Veazey, however; NPR approached Bomberger.

After previously interviewing with NPR for thirty minutes to talk about one of his billboards, only to be completely cut out of the three-minute segment that aired, Bomberger was skeptical.

“It wasn’t about me being spotlighted, but how do you cut out the person who created the campaign and explained the reason behind the campaign?” Despite this experience, he agreed to another interview. “I should have known better.”

NPR called Bomberger fifteen times in three minutes about the validity of his conception story. “How do I know that my story is really true? Because according to the enlightened senior producers at NPR, when you’re adopted, the agencies don’t tell the adoptive parents any of those details. They’re all private.” Not true, Bomberger said. “Adoptive parents are given every detail they possibly can be given.”

Bomberger wanted the opportunity to debate Veazey, a man who “apparently loves to use religion to justify killing,” so he agreed to appear. His skepticism was warranted. He said NPR censored his portion of the debate on the broadcast. “Their heavy editing of only The Radiance Foundation’s perspective, while preserving every word spoken by Reverend Carlton Veazey, revealed NPR’s typical liberal bias and uninformed defense of Planned Parenthood,” he wrote on his blog. NPR officially denied favoring the pro-abortion side and so far has refused to release the unedited version of the debate.

Fatherhood and the Future

Bomberger has found his calling, and he’s committed to spreading the message. He and Rev. Walter Hoye of the Issues4Life Foundation launched a bicoastal billboard campaign on fatherhood.

In previous campaigns, they talked to pastors across the country and other leaders about the need to “step up to responsibility… and deal with the myriad of issues that are plaguing the inner city.”

Bomberger intends to highlight the hypocrisy among leftists on racial disparities. For example, health care disparities typically are characterized as a negative. “But abortion is the only one that apparently has a positive connotation,” he said. For organizations like the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood, racial disparities in abortion, illegitimacy, and fatherlessness don’t seem to be a pressing concern.

“This is the first time we’re making [fatherhood] the focal point…and it’s crucial for us to awaken men to return to their role as providers and defenders…to be the kind of man that steps up to responsibility,” whether married or not.

The new campaign also will touch on child abuse, which occurs more frequently in female-headed homes with live-in boyfriends. “Where are the protectors?” Bomberger said. “It’s hard to address the issue of abortion and not talk about the other half of the equation.”

With many irons in the proverbial fire, Bomberger will contend with accusations that pro-lifers don’t care about children once they’re born. He’s living proof to the contrary. A strong advocate for transracial adoption, Bomberger is frustrated by blacks who oppose it, even as black children languish in the system. He could have languished as well, but Christians rescued him. His adoptive mother’s father threatened to disown her, but she’d made her decision.

“Losing a father to gain a son. I’m glad she went with the right one.”

(Photos courtesy of Ryan Bomberger)

It’s a simple question.

Addendum: Live Action interviews Ray Comfort, the man who made the video. Comfort also works with actor Kirk Cameron at The Way of the Master ministry.

News flash: female Medicaid recipients seeking basic health care have other options besides the abortion mill known as Planned Parenthood. From Live Action:

…and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, an excerpt of a must-read post at Live Action (emphasis added):

“The Supreme Court ruled that a restriction on abortion is a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects the right to privacy. Delivering the Court’s opinion in Roe, Justice Blackmun wrote, ‘This right of privacy … founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action … is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.’

“Even pro-abortion proponents admit that Roe is intellectually indefensible. Edward Lazarus, a former clerk to Blackmun, wrote, ‘What, exactly, is the problem with Roe? The problem, I believe, is that it has little connection to the Constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent.’

“Blackmun claimed that a fetus isn’t a person within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He noted that ‘the Constitution does not define ‘person’ in so many words.’ The word ‘has application only postnatally.’ He observed that state laws restricting abortion ‘are not of ancient or even of common-law origin.’ The laws derive from changes ‘in the latter half of the nineteenth century.’ So, the word person as used in the Fourteenth Amendment ‘does not include the unborn.’

“Each of these arguments falls apart under scrutiny. First, the Constitution doesn’t define person, but the Constitution doesn’t define privacy either. The Supreme Court applied a double standard in Roe, arbitrarily giving the word person a narrow definition and the word privacy a broad definition in order to rationalize its decision to legalize abortion-on-demand. Second, if a fetus isn’t a person because the provisions of the Constitution don’t apply to a fetus, then infants aren’t persons either, because the provisions also don’t apply to infants. Or adolescents in some instances. Third, it’s irrelevant if state abortion laws were less restrictive in the past. Many laws were less restrictive in the past. And it’s irrelevant if state abortion laws originate from statutes not common-law. Many laws originate from statutes. Fourth, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, abortion was already restricted by at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures, including the very Texas law the Supreme Court struck down in Roe. Or in other words, state or territorial laws restricting abortion were already recognized when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted: the Amendment wasn’t intended to overturn laws restricting abortion. Clearly, the Fourteenth Amendment has always included the ‘unborn’ as ‘persons’ entitled to Constitutional protection.”

South Dakota has a new law. Women who want to kill their unborn babies must wait 72 hours and see a pregnancy center counselor before the death commences.

Inconvenient, I know. Gawker notes that it’s easier to get a gun in South Dakota than an abortion. Some nerve, eh?

The enumerated constitutional right to bear arms to protect your family v. the deeply hidden/discovered “right of privacy” to kill your family. Right-wing, anti-choice, religious nuts ought to get their priorities straight.

I don’t think the bill stands a chance of becoming law, but Arizona lawmakers are trying to ban abortions based on the race and sex of the fetus.

I have mixed feelings about this. I know what they’re getting at, but barring the mother from killing her baby because he’s mixed race or a boy won’t keep her from killing the baby.

One of the advantages of blogging for almost eight years is archives. No matter what’s going on in the world, chances are I’ve blogged about it or something similar. From May 2010:

Georgia’s Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act

Star Parker wrote a column about the NAACP rescinding support for Georgia’s Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which makes it illegal to knowingly solicit, perform, or accept funding for abortions on account of the unborn child’s race or sex, or the mother’s race.

(Also see Ga. bill would outlaw abortion for race, sex)

According to the version of the bill I linked, if a woman pregnant with a mixed race baby (white parent, black parent, for example) decides to kill the baby because he’s mixed race or because he’s a boy, and the abortionist knows this, he’ll be liable under the law for violating the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act. If she keeps it to herself, he won’t be liable. In the former case, he’s a criminal. In the latter, he’s merely performing his Supreme Court-protected and horrendous job.

Under that scenario, I have mixed feelings. I don’t like injecting race into the abortion debate, because it muddles the issue: protecting the unborn child, regardless of race. Yes, black women kill their babies at three times the rate of white women, but these women are making the choice, are they not? The wrong one, but a choice nonetheless.

I give people the benefit of the doubt. If an individual is doing something harmful to himself or to others, I assume he’s a free moral agent responsible for his actions. I try to avoid attributing actions to “legacy of slavery,” Jim Crow, bad childhood, poverty, low intelligence, undue influence, and the like. Women of any color who kill their babies know exactly what they’re doing.

On the other hand, I know what the legislators are getting at. About 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clinics are located in inner cities. (Some argue that its presence among low-income women is necessary, as it offers free and low-cost services). According to Georgia Right to Life:

“Every 4 days in American more black children are killed through abortion than the KKK killed in 144 years. Georgia leads the country in the number of reported abortions performed on black women, 18,901 in 2008 alone.”

Racial disproportionality or disparity isn’t evidence of racial discrimination. I try to drill this concept into people’s skull’s every week. And though I hate abortion with a passion, an abortionist’s or pregnant woman’s possibly discriminatory motives for killing the baby matter little. Skin color, sex, convenience, finances, don’t want to get fat, don’t want to carry baby to term and adopt out for whatever reason–the end result is a dead baby.

I’ve written articles and blog posts about Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s views about child killing and racial minorities, so I understand why people inject race into the debate. In fact, I think pro-lifers should remind or inform pro-aborts about Planned Parenthood’s eugenics roots.

But I’m concerned about consistency when alleging racial discrimination. I’d feel like a hypocrite arguing that racial disparities in academic achievement are not evidence of discrimination, but at the same time arguing that racial disparities in abortion are evidence of discrimination. That black women disproportionately abort their babies is not evidence of racial discrimination on the part of abortionists.

Update II: “And, no, sorry liberals but Planned Parenthood didn’t contact the FBI because they were legitimately worried about sex trafficking. If you actually read the reports from when the left was celebrating how wonderfully ethical Planned Parenthood is you can clearly see that they only contacted the FBI after they realized these were stings and not real. They were worried about the crimes Live Action, which they knew were responsible for the stings at the time, may have committed in conducting this undercover investigation…” (Eyeblast)

Ditto.

Update: In light of being embarrassed by getting caught on tape advising a “pimp” on exams and abortions for his underage “sex workers,” abortion mill Planned Parenthood will retrain staff, according to the New York Times.

***

Hey, as long as she wants to kill that baby, everything else is secondary.

As I implied in the previous post, feminist types seem more interested in ad hominem against Lila Rose and demonizing the rest of us “anti-choicers” and less interested in Planned Parenthood employees who “professionally” advise a man they believe is a pimp “managing” girls for sex work! When it comes to getting rid of that fetus, compassion and common sense fly out the window.

Since the last post, Live Action Films has released several more tapes with the “pimp” and his “prostitute” getting advice about STD exams and abortions for underage “sex workers,” some of whom the “pimp” says just arrived in the country.

You know, I don’t like name-calling. I consider it the mark of someone too lazy to come up with a clever turn of phrase or develop a witty enough writing style to get the point across. I’m not exempted. Today I’m feeling lazy and decidedly non-witty (again).

These abortion mill employees caught on tape advising the “pimp” instead of kicking him out or calling the cops (or getting the supervisor, something) while he’s there are complete and unequivocal idiots.

If you can stand it, check out the rest of the tapes.

Update: Tonight at 8:30 EST, Expose Planned Parenthood will host a webcast with Live Action Films’ Lila Rose, Americans United for Life’s Charmaine Yoest, former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr’s pro-life niece, Alveda King, and others.

***

You’ve got to be kidding me. Another Planned Parenthood abortion mill was caught in Live Action’s sting?

The “pimp” and “prostitute” walk into a clinic in Richmond, Virginia, making the same claims about sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, and underage, “out of the country” girls.

What a big old frakin mess! A grown man tells a Planned Parenthood employee that he’s involved in “sex work,” that he “manages” underage girls who have STDs, and the employee just sits there listening and answering his questions? Good Lord.

The employee tells the “pimp” underage girls need a legal guardian to get an abortion, but adds that there’s a “judicial bypass…if you guys ever need it.” Planned Parenthood is advising a man posing as a pimp on how to get around the law to obtain abortions for his underage prostitutes. Is this for real? Tell me it’s just a Candid Camera we-fooled-you-suckers video hoax!

I’ll bet most women working at Planned Parenthood would describe themselves as feminists. What happened to protecting women and girls from “patriarchal” exploitation? Does killing unborn babies supercede that? What kind of world is this?

Also see Planned Parenthood Advises ‘Pimp’ About Abortions for Underage Girls–UPDATED

Twenty-two days after conception, your baby’s heart is beating. Make sure it keeps beating. Protect him and give him life. And watch this.

Update (2/2): “Shocked” Planned Parenthood fires Amy Woodruff.

Update: Jill Stanek says that after Planned Parenthood clinics realized they’d been stung, CEO Cecile Richards “belatedly” reported the posing sex trafficker to the feds. See this Associated Press story.

***

Lila Rose of Live Action Films does it again.

A man and a woman walk into a Planned Parenthood abortion mill in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The man’s posing as a pimp and says they’re involved in “sex work,” and he may have contracted a sexually transmitted disease from one of his “girls.”

Planned Parenthood’s finest, office manager Amy Woodruff, says no problem! And lists their services. Sounding worried, the man tells her some of his sex workers “are like, 15, 14,” and some don’t speak English.

Does Woodruff excuse herself to go call the cops? Does she jump up from the desk and tell him to get the hell out of her office?

Of course not. She explains that “minors are always accepted without parental consent.” She does say Planned Parenthood is “obligated if we hear any certain information.” She says the nurse practitioner is more “anal” and will ask the girls questions about the partner’s age. If any girl he brings in says she’s 14, Planned Parenthood must report it. If the girl is older than 14 and her partner may be an adult, “we just kind of play it stupid.”

The man asks what if the girls are 14 and under and need an abortion? Woodruff pulls out a piece of paper and circles something on it and tells him to “send ‘em right there if they need an abortion.” That place is more lax when it comes the law.

So, instead of turning in this “creep,” Woodruff is giving him advice on pelvic exams and where to send his underage prostitutes to get abortions. And she’s excited! Check out the animated way she speaks. She jumps up to get something that explains a minor’s rights. Is the worker a complete idiot, or just a partial one? She tells the pimp how to get a discount on exams!

“If they’re minors, just tell them to put down that they’re students.”

Verdict: Amy Woodruff is a complete idiot.

Astounding, truly. And it gets worse, if you can believe it. If you have the stomach to watch and listen, check it out:

A Planned Parenthood affliate in Corpus Christi (Latin for body of Christ, FYI), Texas, doesn’t kill unborn babies, so it’s dropping affiliation with national Planned Parenthood.

CEO Amanda Stukenberg said, “We have never provided abortions. Our position is that if that is a need in your community, fine. There are far greater needs in our area than abortion. We feel that women here have options. We don’t need to duplicate services.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the protection of unborn life, but we’ll take it. The affiliate will be renamed Family Planning of the Coastal Bend.

(via Washington Examiner)

In 1984, the former pro-abort Dr. Bernard Nathanson created a video called “Silent Scream,” which showed the killing of a 12-week-old unborn baby. The baby appeared to scream in pain as he was torn apart in the womb. Naturally, abortion advocates called the film misleading. According to TIME, “experts” said a 12-week-old baby can’t move “purposefully” as depicted in the film, and he can’t perceive danger.

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood executive director, would disagree. She left her employer after watching an abortion on ultrasound. She told the Christian Broadcasting Network that she watched the 13-week-old unborn baby “trying to get away from the probe that the doctor was using…I just wanted to make it stop…I could see it twisting and just saw it crumble…I will never do this again.”

Johnson has written a book about her experiences with the abortion mill, titled Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line, available for pre-order.

Live Action’s Lila Rose began her mission to raise awareness about the slaughter of unborn children and expose Planned Parenthood’s practices while a student at the University Of California at Los Angeles.

She’s gone undercover as a minor impregnated by her adult boyfriend at local Planned Parenthood clinics, and caught employees on tape advising her to lie about her age and ignoring the statutory rape. Employees have been caught on tape lying about fetal development.

Lila Rose has been the subject of many blog posts at LBC, and I urge you to go over to First Things and read her story. An excerpt:

“I posed as a young, scared, pregnant girl, fifteen years old, the victim of a twenty-three-year-old statutory rapist. The Planned Parenthood staff told me, into our hidden cameras: ‘Figure out a birth date that works.’ Lie about your age on the paperwork. Say you are older than you really are. We will give you a secret abortion, and no one will ever know.

“The YouTube videos we made of our tapes went viral. Planned Parenthood threatened to sue me—an eighteen-year-old college freshman. I remember returning to my dorm room to find a personal email from the California director of Planned Parenthood, informing me that if I did not ‘relinquish the tapes’ of my investigation to the organization, it would sue me for privacy violations of its employees. With less than $200 in my bank account, threats to sue me for ‘$5,000 for each offense’ might have seemed daunting if I had not had a deep sense that God, as he always does, would use this only for good.

“And, of course, he did. Because of the threat of the lawsuit and the added media attention, I had my first O’Reilly Factor interview—and, after the bad press, Planned Parenthood did not pursue the threat of the lawsuit. This inspired me to think even more carefully and work even harder to come up with more projects to expose the dark heart of the abortion industry.

“My summer vacations turned into summer research projects—undercover investigations into abortion clinics across the country. In the summer of 2007, we investigated six different Planned Parenthood development departments, talking with directors of development and other staff to see whether rumors of Planned Parenthood’s racism were true.

“Planned Parenthood has historic ties to the now-discredited eugenics movement in the United States. More recently, abortionists have worked hard to reach out to minorities. This is reflected in skyrocketing abortion rates among minority women. African-American women account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population but submit to nearly 37 percent of all abortions. Approximately 80 percent of abortion clinics are located in minority neighborhoods. Although most people in our country do not know it, such a heavy abortion rate among minorities was planned and desired by the founders of Planned Parenthood, particularly by founder Margaret Sanger, an open racist and eugenicist.

“Sanger is still revered by pro-abortionists. Are her policies still in circulation? We decided to investigate.”

I’m surprised this hasn’t received widespread play: Missouri now requires child killing “clinics” to put these words on brochures:

The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being. (Source)

Missouri lawmakers didn’t decide this was so. God made it so. Missouri simply has restated it, and the state’s child killing industry must remind women seeking to kill their unborn babies that what’s growing inside them is a living human being, which in turn will remind them that the act of abortion results in a dead human being.

Read this woman’s comment on Planned Parenthood’s lies about fetal development:

“I had an abortion in 1975. It seemed like the only option for me at the time. In response to my first question, the nurse at Planned Parenthood assured me that it wasn’t a baby. It was ‘only a blob of tissue.’ I wasn’t informed about or offered any of the information the new Missouri law provides for the benefit of the mothers and fathers of these tiny, pre-born babies. If I had seen an ultrasound of my baby, heard its heartbeat, or knew that it would feel pain while being burned alive or dismembered I wouldn’t have had the abortion. Since then, my uninformed ‘choice’ negatively affected my life in countless ways. When I found out the truth I was furious at Planned Parenthood for deceiving me. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I found out my depression, self-hatred, sorrow, and more were all directly related to that choice I made decades ago. I am so grateful to hear that Missouri is taking big strides in favor of women’s rights. Women have the right to be informed, know exactly what their choice entails, and the consequences to them and all who will be impacted by their choice (including the father and the grandparents of their pre-born son or daughter). I live in Southern California. In terms of women’s rights, it is obvious we are way behind Missouri. I am proud of you, Missouri.”