Meiners (left) and Harris (right) understand loyalty to a cause; it is what unites them. We hear a lot of talk about loyalty ourselves, about party unity, about not "applying a litmus test on every issue" -- especially if that test involves a women's right to control her own reproduction -- because "when push comes to shove, they'll be loyal to the party and vote our way."  We're scolded that in failing to support all Democrats all the time, we are not only hurting the party's chances now, but sabotaging our own future interests.  Lockstep right down the line, no matter who a Democrat is or what they stand for, because we're sick and tired of losing elections: "We Wanna Win!"

And the American Catholic agrees that Democrats ought to be more practical.

State Sen. Patrick Dougherty and Reps. Patricia Yaeger, Belinda Harris and Thomas Villa, a few of the estimated 25 to 35 pro-life Democrats in the Legislature, said the Democratic Party needs to reassess its positions as it looks to the future. Dougherty termed the reassessment "soul-searching." Others said they believed that the 2004 Democratic candidate for governor, state auditor Claire McCaskill, would have won the election if she had not taken a position in support of keeping abortion legal. "Look at who won and who lost" the Nov. 2 elections, Yaeger said.

That's the ticket. Step right this way into the Big Tent, and save yourself a spot before it gets to be standing room only. Sashay your pro-choice ass inside, pipe down, and try to find a seat in that crowded back row.  But why is it that the only ones who owe unwavering loyalty and support to the Democratic Party are the voters, the people -- you know, US?  What about the Democrats our loyal votes carry into office?

Belinda Harris damned sure doesn't lose any sleep over it.  In fact, she takes the Democratic Party's solid support and financial contributions, tallies its straight-ticket voters in her "win" column, and then tells it, and us, to go straight to hell.

State Rep. Belinda Harris, a 30-year member of Morse Mill Baptist Church who chairs the 27-member Democrats for Life Caucus in Jefferson City, said that it is important for elected officials to be completely pro-life. Whether the topic is abortion or embryonic stem cell research, defending life is defending life, she said.

"This is a moral issue," Harris told The Pathway as her longtime pastor, Jim Johnston, quietly, but firmly expressed his support during interviews in the central Jefferson County brick church nestled in a suburban/country setting near the Big River. "This is something that is a part of your being. If you are a Christian or a church-going person, it doesn't matter what (political) party you are, this is really kind of instilled in you. To go against it is a destroying factor to you as a person and as a Christian.

"If you truly feel this way, then to buck your party is not the problem. You don't want to buck God. You are ultimately responsible for your actions when your time has come. To me, honoring God's wishes is more important than honoring any political party."
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"I feel like on the state level we are winning more support as Democrats for Life," Harris said. ... "After Roe v. Wade, the Democratic Party just kind of took that one side. I felt that was wrong. I'm even really strong on young girls that were raped or had incest to spare that child. The rape and incest is not the experience that's going to be wiped away by killing this child."
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Her goal is to defend even the tiniest embryo that contains a human being. The potential of curing a disease that is keeping someone in a wheelchair pales in comparison to the moral necessity of defending that embryonic soul, in her mind.

At least no one can ever say that Harris hid her true agenda.  So none of us should be surprised by what Belinda Harris and Kate Meiners did today.

Women Will Sponsor Abortion Bill

08/27/2005

A group of 10 women state legislators - eight Republicans and two Democrats - have agreed to co-sponsor an abortion bill in the Missouri Legislature's special session that begins Sept. 6.

The bill will deal with the primary provisions sought by Gov. Matt Blunt, who ordered the session. According to state Rep. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield and one of the lead sponsors, those provisions will include:

Requiring physicians who perform abortions to have clinical privileges at a hospital within 30 miles that provides obstetrical or gynecological care.

Allowing the parent or guardian of women under 18 to sue anyone who helps the minor get an abortion without the parent or guardian's consent, as required in Missouri.

That provision is aimed at curbing the number of Missouri minors who obtain abortions in Illinois, which does not have a parental-consent requirement. Parents who commit incest will be barred from suing, Cunningham said.

The bill also is likely to include a requirement that minors seeking a judicial bypass to the parental-consent mandate must be accompanied by a "next friend" who is over 18, Cunningham said Saturday. That person cannot be someone who would benefit financially from the minor's abortion decision, such as an employee of an abortion clinic.
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Paula Gianino, head of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, said Saturday that if the women co-sponsors truly wanted to discourage abortion they would seek to resurrect the state's family-planning program, which the Legislature killed several years ago.
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Cunningham identified the other co-sponsors of the anti-abortion bill as: state Reps. Belinda Harris, D-Hillsboro; Cynthia Davis, R-O'Fallon; Kate Meiners, D-Kansas City; Susan Phillips, R-Kansas City; Therese Sander, R-Moberly; Danie Moore, R-Fulton; Kathy Chinn, R-Clarence; Jodi Stefanick, R-Manchester; and Sally Faith, R-St. Charles.

Well, what's wrong with a little compromise?  Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land, at least so far, and those provisions don't sound all that bad, do they?  If any of this sounds like the voice of sweet reason, either you're an anti yourself or you just haven't learned to decipher their carefully crafted and coded language yet.  This bill's hard-line antiabortion sponsors understand a whole lot more than most of their constituents do about what these provisions really mean and what they'll really do.  

Requiring physicians who perform abortions to have clinical privileges at a hospital within 30 miles that provides obstetrical or gynecological care.

Well, what's so bad about that?  Won't that help make sure that abortions are performed more safely, and only by qualified doctors?  After all, what kind of an OB/GYN doesn't have clinical privileges in at least one area hospital?  

That would be the kind of OB/GYN that provides abortions, especially in an area (like the state of Missouri) where there are so few local providers. Sometimes a doctor has to travel to a clinic from another city, or even from another state. Abortion care is now so marginalized that "mainstream" OB/GYNs who regularly admit women to hospitals for hysterectomies, endometrial ablations, tubal ligations or deliveries hardly ever provide abortion care anymore, especially, again, in places like Missouri.  And how does a doctor gain clinical privileges at a hospital in the first place?  By a standard credentialing process and by regularly admitting a minimum qualifying number of patients, which becomes highly problematic for abortion-providing physicians in places where hospitals won't permit abortions to be performed.

Abortion is such a safe procedure that emergency hospitalization for complications is an extremely rare event -- so much so that if a doctor whose practice was confined to the provision of abortion care sent enough women to the hospital to qualify for admitting privileges, I wouldn't let him/her spay my dog.  But if a woman should need to be hospitalized for complications of an abortion, that would qualify as an emergency admission, and obviously a doctor wouldn't need hospital privileges in order for her to be admitted for any treatment she needed.

That one innocent-sounding provision alone will go a long way toward doing away with access to abortion care in the entire state, since abortion providers in Missouri are already nearly as scarce as they are in Mississippi -- and small wonder when the few existing Missouri providers are targeted by having their photographs posted on the Internet by rabid anti activists like Angela Michael, to whom we'll return in a moment.  And that brings us to the next booby trap.

Allowing the parent or guardian of women under 18 to sue anyone who helps the minor get an abortion without the parent or guardian's consent, as required in Missouri. Parents who commit incest will be barred from suing.

That afterthought of an exemption in the last sentence is the only drop of Christian mercy you'll find in this entire bill. If you clicked on the "Missouri" link above, you saw only one listing for a provider in that state; the others were for clinics in Colorado, Arkansas and Illinois. That alone tells you how hard it already is to get an abortion in Missouri.  Many women there, and most teenagers, cross the Mississippi River instead to seek care at clinics such as the Hope Clinic for Women in Illinois, a state where legal restrictions on abortion are less severe.  

Others flock across the river to Illinois as well, but with entirely different motives.  As promised, meet Angela Michael - head of Small Victories Ministries, mother of 11 children, "pro-life" street activist, and bosom friend of Operation Save America/Operation Rescue's notorious Flip Benham.

Angela is an authority on the relationship between [Hope Clinic and St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, located directly across the street], having sidewalk-counseled outside [the] abortuary three or four times a week for seven years. Hope Clinic sits on land the hospital sold ... to abortionist Hector Zevallos, who was on St Elizabeth's staff when he built it, in 1974. In 1981, Zevallos hired hospital colleague Yogendra Shah to join him there as an abortionist. In 1982, Angela reports, Shah bought the business, Zevallos having lost his taste for it when he and wife Rosalie were held captive for eight days by a wildcat prolife group calling itself The Army of God.

(Well, I have mentioned before that there are fewer abortion providers now than there used to be . . .)  

For years it has been Michael's self-appointed mission to harass anyone who approaches Hope Clinic and to make life hell for everyone who's dedicated and determined enough to work there.

Angela is always there, just outside the clinic. Taking names. Taking license numbers. Taking pictures and posting them on the net. Calling the police with wild accusations.  Producing a radio show that airs in St. Louis seven times a week. And watching changes in Missouri's abortion laws like the vulture she is.  What do you think will happen now every time she sees a young woman get out of a car with Missouri plates?  That's the kind of thing Harris, Meiners and their Republican girlfriends are really counting on to "curb the number of Missouri minors who obtain abortions in Illinois."  

Minors seeking a judicial bypass to the parental-consent mandate must be accompanied by a "next friend" who is over 18. That person cannot be someone who would benefit financially from the minor's abortion decision, such as an employee of an abortion clinic.

"Benefit financially"?  Give me a crying break.  Is there anyone, anywhere, of any political persuasion, who actually believes that there is a judge anywhere in the country - let alone in a state as antagonistic to abortion rights as Missouri -- who would routinely grant bypasses solely as favors to abortion providers?  Because unless you think that's exactly what this provision is saying, it is clear that its sole purpose is to prevent minors from having any access to judicial bypass at all.  

When Texas instituted parental notification (now consent) and judicial bypass in 1999, pregnant teenagers there were fortunate that a group of compassionate pro-choice attorneys created Jane's Due Process as an advocacy organization.  When a young woman under 18 is unable, for whatever reason, to obtain the consent of at least one parent, JDP eases her access to the judicial bypass process by giving her information about her rights and connecting her with an experienced pro bono attorney who will represent her and accompany her to court.  JDP is nationally recognized as a model for such legal advocacy, and it's a sin and a shame that it has so little competition for that honor.

Even adult women with financial resources of their own would be intimidated by the prospect of having to hire an attorney, go to court and share the most intimate details of their personal lives with a judge in order to be allowed to have an abortion. For the average scared-to-death teenager with no moral support or accurate information about to access the legal system in the first place, the judicial bypass option might as well not exist at all.  In states without a legal advocacy group like JDP, most often the only available assistance for a pregnant teen seeking an abortion comes from the clinic itself - and antis like Harris and Meiners know it.  


Belinda Harris and Kate Meiners: Democrats, Democrats for Life. This is what they support.  This is who they are.  This is what they are.  Now somebody explain that litmus thingy to me one more time.