Year: 2011

According to the BBC, Ugandan police have arrested Enock Nsubuga in connection with the murder of David Kato.

Ugandan police have arrested a man over last week’s murder of David Kato, a gay activist who sued a local newspaper which outed him as homosexual.

Police say Enock Nsubuga, the second person arrested in connection with the killing, is their main suspect.

They deny that Mr Kato was killed because of his sexuality and that initial inquiries point to robbery.

It is not a good sign when the police think they know the motive before they arrest the suspect.  An Enock Nsubuga has this Facebook profile (this Enock likes his beer) but I don’t know if this is the same person.

In the Planned Parenthood expose video revealed today, clinic manager Amy Woodruff (who has now lost her job) refers to the Metropolitan Medical Associates (the actor on the video says Metropolitan Medical Association but this appears to be the same place) as a place where teens can get an abortion with minimal oversight and no identification.

After being down for at least a couple of days, the MMA website is now working. One may also find a link to the clinic at NewJerseyabortion.com, a portal that also links to Women’s Choice Medical Center in Hackensack. The Women’s Choice Medical Center is a smaller clinic than MMA and does abortions for women who are under 14 weeks along. MMA does abortions for women under 24 weeks, according to a source at the clinic.

Recently, the organization has had some medical and regulatory problems. In 2007, the clinic was temporarily shut down due to a failed inspection of the facility following the death of a patient. The patient died as the result of a failed abortion. The inspection revealed dirty and unsafe conditions.

After the incident was reported [the death of the patient], state inspectors found dirty forceps, rusty crochet hooks used to remove IUDs and a quarter-inch of dark red “dirt and debris” under an examining table in the Engle Street clinic.

The state let the facility reopen in March 2007.

Regarding the claim on the Planned Parenthood video that MMA is an easier place for a teen to get an abortion, I note that the front page of the clinic website promotes the fact that one does not need parental consent in NJ. Most of the pictures seem to be of young teens. On the what to expect page, I could find nothing spelling out if there are any age restrictions. There was also an online discount coupon with a restriction on one use per person.

UPDATE: The clinic manager at the center of this controversy, Amy Woodruff, has been fired. Planned Parenthood condemned the manager’s actions but also had harsh words for Live Action, the group that conducted the sting.

….

CBS News covers the controversy over the Planned Parenthood video released today showing a PP clinic manager referring a man posing as a pimp to an abortion clinic where underage abortions can be secured, and appearing to help the actors skirt the law.

An anti-abortion rights activist today released an edited undercover video she says exposes Planned Parenthood for “aiding and abetting the sex trafficking of underage girls” and “covering up sex abuse.”

The latest release follows similar undercover video releases from young conservative activists, most notably the James O’Keefe-led ACORN videos. And like those videos, which were later revealed to have been selectively edited, this one has immediately generated controversy.

The video is below. By the way, the Live Action group has no association with James O’Keefe. The unedited footage is here and here.

The video does not seem to be heavily edited, especially in crucial parts where the clinic manager refers the sex workers to Metropolitan Medical Association and where she advises the pimp how to get underage girls services without “getting anybody in trouble.”

Planned Parenthood has confirmed that Amy Woodruff is their employee, according to CBS News:

Planned Parenthood said in a statement that the action taken by the employee as portrayed in the new video “is not consistent with Planned Parenthood’s practices, and is under review.”

The CEO of Planned Parenthood New Jersey added that “the behavior of our employee, as portrayed on the video, if accurate, violates PPCNJ policies, as well as our core values of protecting the welfare of minors and complying with the law, and appropriate action is being taken.”

Woodruff certainly does seem to be operating in contrast to what she believes other staffers would do so I do not dismiss Planned Parenthood’s statement lightly. I will watch closely to what “appropriate action” PP takes.

Given that PP has acknowledged that this manager is one of their employees, I don’t see how supporters of PP can do anything but condemn the actions portrayed here. This incident, along with the clear lack of regulation of abortion clinics recently uncovered in PA and DE, makes a convincing case for more stringent oversight of abortion clinics. As noted in the Philadelphia grand jury report, legitimate operators will not mind this.

In 2007, three representatives from the Delaware Pro-Choice Medical Fund toured Kermit Gosnell’s Womens Medical Society in West Philadelphia.  According to a statement from the National Network of Abortion Funds (full statement here), the visitors saw nothing that prevented them from funding abortions there. According to the NNAB,

The Network has reached out to the Delaware Pro-choice Medical Fund and can share the following information about the relationship between the Fund and Dr. Gosnell’s clinic. Three volunteer board members of the Fund toured Gosnell’s clinic in 2007. They were met by Dr. Gosnell and two other doctors as well as some administrative staff. Their tour took place on a day when abortions were not being provided, but other health care services were and the women saw several elderly patients in the waiting room. One of the other doctors, not Gosnell, showed the Fund members around the clinic. Nothing they saw, including the ultrasound room, waiting room, and recovery room, gave them any reason to be concerned about the practices of the clinic. After the tour, the Fund also did some research on Dr. Gosnell on a website that rates doctors and hospitals. On that site they discovered one sanction against another employee at the clinic but it appeared from the information available that the matter had been resolved eleven years prior. The Fund did not consider the one sanction to be sufficient reason to deny help to women obtaining abortion services at the clinic.

The Philadelphia grand jury report noted that Gosnell directed his staff to lie to the Delaware Pro-Choice Medical Fund about the address of women seeking abortion. Apparently, the DPCMF worked directly with clinics rather than giving money to women. Thus, the fund was vulnerable to this kind of fraud.

The statement from NNAF, if it can be taken at face value, illustrates at least one more reason why state government needs to regulate abortion clinics. We already know that the National Abortion Federation observed Gosnell’s clinic and found reasons not to include it in their membership. However, the evaluator told no one about the conditions there and they continued. Now we find that another pro-choice group entered the clinic and didn’t see the problems that others saw.

Apparently the conditions were continuously bad. According to the grand jury, the Philadelphia Health Department visited the clinic in 2007 and found some problems but apparently overlooked others. In fact, the grand jury was surprised that no one reported the other problems.

Health department employees who visited the clinic between 2001 and 2007 recorded that they dealt with “Drs.” O’Neill and Massof, but never Gosnell. These inspectors noted problems with the refrigerator, the clinic’s record-keeping, and expired vaccines. They were apparently oblivious, however, to other obvious deficiencies that did not relate directly to vaccines.

Perhaps Gosnell cleaned up for the visit in ways that would fool untrained people. However, in hindsight, it seems to be an oversight to only do an internet search about Gosnell. According to the NNAF statement, the Delaware group met with Gosnell and two “doctors.” According to the grand jury report, there were no other doctors at the clinic. Instead, two people called doctors at the clinic were not licensed as physicians anywhere. An inquiry of the state medical board would have uncovered that.

In the case of Women’s Medical Society, two private abortion groups visited the clinic with no consequences. The bottom line is this: if the state is not going to regulate abortion clinics, then in essence they will  be unregulated.

Bryan Fischer gets his gay nazi on with this glowing tribute to Scott Lively and the Pink Swastika.

Two things: One, the motives behind David Kato’s death are not clear as yet but that does not stop Bryan Fischer from providing his audience with one-sided analysis. It may be awhile before we can sort through all of the competing theories.

And two, and perhaps more dangerous, Fischer recommends to his large audience a book which has been rejected by Campus Crusade, NARTH, Exodus International and virtually all historians I know who have looked at it. Even the historian Fischer advances to support his theory of the Holocaust said Fischer and Lively are wrong (see Lothar Machtan’s statement).

Hitler’s atrocities primarily do NOT derive from his homosexuality. Of course you CANNOT blame Hitler’s homosexuality for the Holocaust. (Machtan supplied the emphasis)

Machtan thinks Hitler was gay. Having read his book, I would say he did not succeed in proving his thesis. Machtan’s book is not well received among historians. However, even someone who thinks Hitler might have been gay says that his sexuality had nothing to do with the Holocaust or other atrocities. The only ones who think that are…, well, you know.