THE QUESTION borders on the inane: Can Virginia regulate “facilities in which first-trimester abortion services are provided” and “medical personnel who perform first-trimester abortions”? The answer is obvious: Of course it can. Every state regulates medical personnel and facilities, from those that dispense acne medication to those that perform open-heart surgery.

But there’s a catch:

How a state regulates, however, is a different question — and one that should be answered by solid medical evidence and sound public policy.

Ok. Fine. So, the question is simple. How dangerous is abortion as a medical procedure right now (or how potentially dangerous could it be?). Obviously, we are not taking about the fetus. Abortion is always 100% a deathly ending for the unborn. Let’s look at that stats. What’s that? The Commonwealth doesn’t have those stats. Oh, so there must be no problem then! That’s the ComPost’s conclusion:

State medical and health boards already provide oversight of abortion facilities and the medical personnel who perform roughly 25,000 abortions each year. The Virginia Department of Health does not keep statistics on the number of medical complications associated with abortions. But the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit think tank that focuses on reproductive health and supports legal abortion, reports that less than one-half of 1 percent of abortions performed in the country result in complications that require follow-up medical treatment. The earlier the abortion is performed, the fewer the complications. The Virginia clinics in question perform only first-trimester abortions — the safest of all procedures. The institute provides compelling medical information that a woman’s decision to have an abortion has little to no impact on her ability to give birth later.

Look, we all know that this regulation of abortion mills has little to do with the safety of the procedure (although it does have some to do with it) and that the real point of it is to choke the abortion industry. The challenge to these laws and regulations will be one similar to a disparate impact challenge: the law is not targeted to do what it says it should do (regulate a procedure) but it’s really meant to do something else (eliminate that procedure). The pro-life movement should pursue clinical regulations but it should also realize that in the grand scheme of things, they are not the main thrust of the movement.

Nevertheless, the Post’s agreement with the AG’s position is remarkable. As is its brain-dead analysis.

Here are some gems from Robert McDuff of Jackson, who is one of the attorneys who filed suit:

If a fertilized egg were entitled to due process, some doctors might fear that someone might sue them for the impact of a fertility treatment or for lifesaving measures that may be necessary when a woman suffers a miscarriage.

Who died and made you Nostradamus, Mr. McDuff? Anything in the “if . . . some . . . might” sentence structure is completely indefensible. E.g. “If [grizzly bears grow wings] some [discrete and insular minorities]  might [get eaten].” Well then sir we must stop it, and now!

Certainly there is more than is betrayed by the news story but this point is of exactly zero legal significance as there is no injury in fact. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife. Also it is stupid. There is absolutely no reason to think that the standard of care that doctors are already held to would be altered in a meaningful way. Miscarriages happen just like patients die. Wrong legs are also amputated on occasion, and doctors who shred fetuses should be subject to the same liability as those who hack off good limbs.

McDuff said redefining the word “person” would be a substantial change and could lead to government interference in the doctor-patient relationship.

Illogical fear-mongering? Mr. McDuff is serving it up family style folks. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds but from what I have seen this suit cannot pass Lujan as nobody has been injured and it is quite a strain to say that something going on a ballot in 16 months poses an imminent threat of injury. Unless of course one of these women is expecting and boasts a pachydermal gestation period.

According to the AP, the May 13, 1997 memo shows Kagan arguing that Clinton should support a compromise ban on late-term abortions as a way of avoiding a congressional override of his veto on a more restrictive, Republican bill. The compromise bill had been authored by then-Sen. Tom Daschle(D-S.D.)

“We recommend that you endorse the Daschle amendment in order to sustain your credibility on HR 1122 and prevent Congress from overriding your veto,” Kagan and her boss, Bruce Reed, wrote, according to the AP.

In fact, I remember this bill. I remember many of these so-called “compromise bills.” They banned infanticide partial-birth abortion. But then these bills had health and life of the mother exceptions so broad that they essentially swallowed whole the bill (Much like a certain health care law we know and a certain executive order…oh…too soon, Bart?).

The point is: don’t make a story over whether Elena believes in a right to privacy that covers abortion et al. She does. That’s a doctrine of modern judicial liberalism and to think Elena believes otherwise is just naive. In fact, David Bernstein nails what her so-called “friendliness to conservatives” really means:

Elena Kagan is the best nominee we are likely to get from a liberal president and a Senate with an overwhelming Democratic majority. But the excitement (among some on the right) and dismay (by some on the left) over her good relations with conservatives as dean at Harvard is exaggerated.

There is no evidence that she has any ideological sympathy for the “right.” Yes, she effusively praised the Federalist Society for its commitment to open debate when the Society held its annual conference at Harvard. But isn’t the dean at Harvard supposed to provide some kind words when a prominent, prestigious organization holds a conference at the law school? And she did add, “You are not my people.”…

…In short, all we know is that, like Calabresi, Kagan didn’t let her liberal ideological sympathies get in the way of doing her job. She treated all of her constituents, even those on the right, with respect, prevented ideological considerations from dominating faculty hiring policy, and generally put the interests of Harvard Law School above politics.

That’s all great, and from all indications she was a fine dean. But I’m reminded of the conservatives who attended Harvard Law with Barack Obama who lavished praise on him for actually listening to them [literally listening, not agreeing] and treating them with respect when he was editor of the Law Review. Let’s not confuse competence and basic human decency with anything more dramatic. The fact that such qualities are not always on display at places like Harvard doesn’t mean that those who display them deserve anything more than a basic acknowledgment of those qualities, nor that anything more should be read into it.

Kagan has no judicial experience. She’s largely a career politician. Running Harvard Law School is about as hard as running the Make-a-Wish-Foundation. Do we really need any more reasons to say why Elena Kagan is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The smartest (and saddest) thing I ever heard about the difference between the pro-abortion and pro-life position: those who want an abortion choose, knowing full-well that it is a baby, that it’s not a baby.

SA minstrel, a song please!

Brave Sir [Stupak] ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir [Stupak] turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir [Stupak]!

This from LifeNews:

Stupak first faces a primary election challenge from a hardcore abortion advocate who, today finds herself getting national support from NARAL. … “Over the last several months, we’ve been forced to witness Rep. Bart Stupak’s despicable attempts to hijack health-care reform because of his extreme anti-choice agenda,” NARAL president Nancy Keenan said today an in [sic] email LifeNews.com obtained.

And if Stupak makes it through the primary, there will be a pro-life republican waiting to challenge him. But to make it through the primaries, he will likely have to downplay his ostensible pro-life stance which will make it tough to win many pro-life Michiganders.

Such is the fate of weak men.

“I’m doing this to de-mystify abortion,” she says. “I’m doing this so other women know, ‘Hey, it’s not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was.’ It’s just not that bad.”

These are the words of Angie Jackson, a blogger and mother of a 4-year-old son. Her IUD birth control failed; she is four weeks pregnant and writing about her abortion on YouTube, her personal blog, and on Twitter under the hashtag #livetweetingabortion.

Last Thursday, Jackson visited a Planned Parenthood where her doctor gave her the first dose of RU-486, the abortion pill. (Note: The abortion pill is not the same as the morning-after pill.) She had to take four more pills — swallowing two and letting two others dissolve in her mouth—on Friday and Saturday.

She hasn’t taken to her various media platforms to show the graphic parts of her abortion. Instead, Jackson is chronicling how her abortion feels physically and emotionally — as she puts it on YouTube, “It’s just not that bad.” It’s almost like guerilla sex ed.

An optimistic part of me thinks that the woman’s callous disregard for human life and the way that she is acting in the public square will actually hurt her cause.  Instead of de-mystifying abortion, she offers an extreme example of self-absorption and selfishness.

Well, that’s what I tell myself to keep from weeping.

By the way, I find the comments of the person blogging about this to be hysterical.

I think it’s brave of her to share something that will make her a bulls-eye for anti-choice activists.

Oh yes, what a brave woman.  She will have to endure the slings and arrows of hundreds of furious blog comments (like this one) that she most likely will never read.  It certainly takes a brave individual to swallow a few pills in order to “do away with a problem” rather than take responsibility for one’s actions.  She’s a real warrior that one.

“It’s ingenious,” said the Rev. Johnny Hunter, national director of the Life Education and Resource Network, a North Carolina-based anti-abortion group aimed at African-Americans that operates in 27 states. “This campaign is in your face, and nobody can ignore it.”

The billboards went up last week in Atlanta and urge black women to “get outraged.”

In your face? That’s for sure.  I’m still shocked.  Thoughts?