Category: politics

Abortion clinic regulation scandal in PA

Yesterday, I briefly posted a link to an article about Kermit Gosnell, a physician in Philadelphia who has been charged with the murder of a patient and sevenbabies. I knew I recognized the name but couldn’t place it at the time. After looking a bit more, I found several articles on the Gosnell’s background (e.g., this one from LifeNews).

Then I located the grand jury report on the case which included testimony of lawyers for the PA Dept of Health (beware – the report is not for the faint of heart). There is some confirmation of my suspicion that the reason abortion clinics had not been inspected related to policy. Here is a passage (pp. 161-164) where the report characterizes the testimony of attorneys for the DOH.

It was clear to us after hearing these witnesses testify that the decisions not to inspect abortion clinics or to license them as ASFs were not based on any serious interpretation of statutes or legal research. These lawyers were simply twisting and reinterpreting the law to explain policy decisions that changed with administrations, even though the laws did not. Dutton admitted in her testimony that the decision not to inspect was a policy decision, not one grounded in the law:

Q: Does it surprise you to know that some of the reasons cited for the failure to go out and do these inspections is that they believed that they didn’t have the legal authority to do so?

A: That would surprise me, yes. . . . To me, I would believe that they didn’t go out to do them because some policy had been set in the department at some point in time in the past that we were not going to do regular inspections of abortion facilities.

Dutton’s failure to recognize and treat abortion clinics as ASFs, and her silence as DOH shirked its duty to protect women and infants at abortion clinics, reflect a blatant refusal to enforce the law.

The DOH attorneys offered multiple explanations to attempt to justify why the department does not license abortion clinics in the same manner as any other ASF. None of their explanations comports with the law or with common sense.

Two of their “justifications” are barely worth comment. One lawyer told us that there is always “push-back” from doctors who do not want to be licensed as ASFs. Not only is this argument irrelevant to any legal analysis, it is unpersuasive. We learned that there are fewer than 30 abortion providers in the entire state. These doctors should not be able to exert that much push-back. Moreover, the legitimate abortion providers who testified before the Grand Jury told us that they already comply with standards as demanding as those for ASFs. Abortion rights advocates told us the same thing – that licensing abortion clinics as ASFs would not be burdensome because clinics that are members of NAF, or associated with Planned Parenthood, already comply with the highest standards of care.

A second reason proffered by DOH attorneys for not licensing abortion clinics – that abortion is “controversial” – is just insulting. Abortion is a legal medical procedure. Any controversy surrounding the issue should not affect how the law is enforced or whether the Department of Health protects the safety of women seeking health care.

The DOH lawyers offered up policy based reasons not to regulate abortion providers but the grand jury dismissed these excuses.

I am hoping an investigation of the DOH will now commence to discern who authorized the policy which illegally exempted abortion facilities from inspection. As the rest of the grand jury report makes clear abortion facilities are required to be inspected by state law regulating ambulatory surgical facilities (ASFs). However, apparently for decades, these facilities have not been treated as such and allowed to practice without oversight.

Is Bryan Fischer the new kingmaker?

Yesterday, Newsweek’s Ben Adler posted an article featuring Bryan Fischer, Issues Analyst for the American Family Association. In it, Adler portrayed Fischer as a provocative imp who has crafted a media shtick filled with offensive and outrageous positions designed to get ratings and offend liberals. He may or may not mean what he says, according to Adler, but it doesn’t matter because the Christian political business rolls with outrage – requiring a sanctified shock jock to shake things up. Fischer is just doing his job.

To support the tone of his column, Adler referred to Fischer’s protests (oh, the horror!) that “President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords.” Adler also picked up on some anti-gay, anti-Muslim and yes, the anti-bear comments (you’ll have to click the link for more on that one) but he left out the worst and least entertaining, to wit:

Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews. Gays in the military is an experiment that has been tried and found disastrously and tragically wanting. Maybe it’s time for Congress to learn a lesson from history.

Adler said Fischer was both threatening and entertaining – I call it “hatertainment” – but Fischer’s reference to the Holocaust doesn’t seem very entertaining to me. Neither do disparaging remarks about Catholic Latinos and Muslim inbreeding (click the links to be hatertained).

To me, Adler’s article points to a new low in the culture war. Is the AFA cynically putting out shocking positions in a manipulative effort to entertain an audience? If that’s true, that is scandalous. If it is not true, then he and the AFA really mean all of those things and deserve the scrutiny given to them recently by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Either way, the audience is clearly there. According to Newsweek, right wing politicians have taken notice:

Fischer’s program, “Focal Point,” reaches about two million listeners and has featured guest appearances from a number of prominent Republicans such as Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, and Mike Huckabee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who on Wednesday told Fischer he would be in favor of reinstating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

All of those guys are or have been at various stages of positioning for a run at the GOP nomination. Herman Cain, who just declared his intent to run for the nomination, was just on the show as well. Does this mean that the road to the GOP nomination runs through Bryan Fischer’s radio show?

I hope not.

It is certainly possible that none of Fischer’s GOP guests know of the outrageous positions he promotes. However, that was little defense for John McCain when he was endorsed by megachurch pastor John Hagee in 2008. Catholic groups were outraged. Why? On one occasion, Hagee accused Catholicism of being “a godless theology of hate” which during the Nazi’s reign, promoted “a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.” Over time, reporters dug up more statements by Hagee which embarrassed McCain. McCain said he didn’t know Hagee’s views and if he had known, he would not sought his endorsement. After months of being dogged by the matter, McCain explicitly rejected association with him.

To date, Fischer has given his stamp of approval to Herman Cain and Mike Pence. However, those not inclined to support these candidates are already questioning the wisdom of even appearing on Fischer’s program. For instance, Andrew Sullivan asked about Fischer yesterday:

More to the point: is embracing a man who believes this kind of bile now essential to being viable as a primary candidate for president in the current GOP? If a Democrat had gone on a radio show with anyone as far out on the left as Fischer is on the far right, his or her career would be over.

Talk about burying the lead: Now I have come to the question which is the title of this post and which echos Sullivan’s question – is Bryan Fischer the new GOP kingmaker? Let me add some questions for discussion – is it fair to evaluate candidates based on friendly appearances with people who express incendiary views? Is Sullivan correct about a Democratic candidate who made a comparable appearance?

These questions are political but I am also interested in reader feedback on the religious matters involved. Applying Bryan Fischer’s evaluation of the President (“either he means what he says or he is a bald-faced liar”), how should we evaluate the positions promoted by the AFA? Is being shocking as a means to an end good practice for a Christian ministry?

Oh, so that’s why Bryan Fischer says the darndest things!

Newsweek has it all figured out. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer has been getting in touch with his inner imp. Zany? Wacky? Outrageous? Nah, it is all a ploy to get ratings and irritate the opponents.  According to Newsweek:

You might think that attention in the form of mockery is not what a public-policy organization would want. But when your business is waging a culture war, there is no such thing as bad publicity for ideological or rhetorical extremism. Being criticized by liberals in the media raises the profile of a socially conservative organization, and burnishes its credibility among the base. Just ask Sarah Palin, or her fans. Fischer’s critics also benefit from the twofer of his being both entertaining and threatening.

Call it “hatertainment.”

But he doesn’t really mean it, does he? Here is Newsweek’s take on that question.

Getting attention from a perch so far off the mainstream media radar screen requires ingenuity. And Fischer is able to shock even jaded journalists and pundits. But does he really believe his most widely circulated statements? Yes and no. A Dec. 21 blog post earned Jon Stewart’s mockery on The Daily Show when Fischer asserted, “President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords.” All Obama had done is express approval for the nonbinding U.N. Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples which contains one passage affirming land rights. Does Fischer honestly believe that Obama is going to turn your home over to a Native American tribe? Not really, but by pretending he does—which he defends as “taking Obama at his word,”—he gets to make a ludicrous claim. “Either Obama meant what he said or he’s a bald-faced liar,” says Fischer. “I don’t think Obama meant what he said.”

Clever. Since Fischer is just pretending, let’s try that in reverse.

When Fischer says things, either he means what he says or he’s a bald-faced liar. You pick.

Maybe President Obama could be a talk show host on the AFA radio network. According to Fischer, the President has got the formula down.

According to Newsweek and Newsweek’s experts, the whole shtick is more business than conviction. 

“Like all Christian political groups [AFA] has leaders who are entrepreneurial,” says Green. “In the past [Christian conservatives] have sometimes been controversial on purpose, to get attention from the rest of us and to raise money for their organizations. It’s not that they are insincere, but there are organizational motives.” So if Fischer shocks or horrifies coastal media elites by expressing views that they consider bigoted or simply baffling, he is just doing his job.

So if there are “organizational motives,” then saying goofy, offensive stuff you don’t really mean is not insincere but just part of the biz. Glad that’s all cleared up.

After reading the Newsweek piece, I am not sure which more offensive – what Fischer does with his platform or Newsweek’s cynical regard for what they portray as business as usual for Christian ministry.

Pakistan’s PM: We are not going to amend blasphemy laws

So says CNN.

This is very disappointing news. The President and other leaders were leaning toward a pardon back in November of 2010. More recently, in light of the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, the government has sought to placate Pakistani Islamic hard right.

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — Pakistan’s prime minister pledged on Monday the government will not change the country’s controversial blasphemy laws.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s announcement comes amid growing pressure from hard-line religious groups and nearly two weeks after the assassination of a leading liberal politician who led a public campaign to change the laws.

“We are not going to amend them,” Gilani told a gathering at a scheduled appearance in central Pakistan on Monday. “Anyone who says there will be changes is lying.”

I have no proof, but reading between lines, I wonder if the government agreed to leave the blasphemy laws in place in exchange for a cessation of violence from the far right Isalamic groups.

I am quite concerned now that the next placation will be Asia Bibi. I pray that she can still be pardoned and leave the country with her family.

Chronic mental illness requires policy changes

Read this article, just out on the USA Today website for some insight into why the nation’s mental health policy is broken.

As we have seen, such concerns are not solely health related but security related as well. Sadly, “pro-family” organizations opposed efforts, eventually successful, to require health insurance coverage to include rational benefits for mental health care. We need to do much more to secure a safe and reasonable national policy.