In a new strategy from national anti-choice group, Operation Rescue, Albuquerque New Mexico voters head to the polls today to vote on a municipal ban on abortion past 20 weeks. While the ban has an exception for the life of the mother it has no health exception and no exception for rape and incest victims.
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said?to Reuters?in September:
It is a new strategy. There is more than one way to close an abortion clinic.
Why Albuquerque you may ask? After the murder of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita Kansas in 2009, Operation Rescue was successful in driving late term abortion providers out of Kansas, eventually getting a 20 week ban passed in the state. Two of the four remaining providers in the country went to Albuquerque and began to provide services there. Shortly after Operation Rescue set up offices, and set to work, trying to find a way to shut down their services.
The group?Project Defending Life,?led by the two Operation Rescue activists?Bud and Tara Shaver,?submitted a petition?with nearly 27,000 signature to the city council, and the city clerk’s office?verified the 12,091 signatures?needed to place the measure on the ballot.
The Respect Albuquerque Women campaign has worked to get the stories out of real women who have needed later term abortions so people can understand why these procedures are needed as medical care. A woman named Christie in one video?, explaining the necessity of these procedures stated:
We were ready to give our two year old a brother or sister. And everything with the pregnancy went pretty well until we went for our 20 week ultrasound. My baby had a hole in her diaphragm. The stomach and the intestines, which are supposed to be down in the abdomen, were up in her chest cavity. This forced her heart over into her right armpit. And it forced her trachea and esophagus out of the middle of her chest. And the most important factor was that it prevented her lungs from developing.
?I never thought I would ever need an abortion,” Christie says. ?I could carry the baby to term and watch her suffocate or I could end the pregnancy early and let her go peacefully.?
Contrary to how anti-choice activists like to portray later term abortions they are incredibly rare and are likely to occur in the context of wanted pregnancies with fatal genetic flaws, or that threaten the life or well-being of the mother.
Troy Newman makes it clear that if this works, there will be more of these tactics, saying:
If you can’t get anything done in a state legislature ? you look at what is going on in a city. They say all politics is local. This is a great example of that.
Edited by SS
