Yesterday Intro 371, the bill seeking to muzzle pregnancy resource centers in NYC, was passed by a resounding 39-9 vote with one abstention. I was there in the Council chamber and witnessed history being made. I’ll be blogging on this over the course of a few posts. There are myriad angles to this story and I’ll only touch on a few.
First, the true target in all of this was not Chris Slattery and EMC Pregnancy Centers, as some have been writing. Nor have the other CPC directors been the inspiration for this legislation. Chris has been around the longest in NYC, and while he is a hero to many and reviled by the other side, this was NOT a personal vendetta by the City Council. To suggest as much is extremely myopic and clouds our vision to the truth, a truth much more sinister than a mere grudge-fest.
In reality, similar legislation already exists in other cities, and is part of a nationwide concerted effort by NARAL and Planed Parenthood. New York City was chosen for a few reasons.
First, because we have a radical, proabort lesbian City Council Speaker who has been bought and paid for by NARAL and Planned Parenthood.
Second, because New Yorkers accept abortion rather blithely. There is not much substantial opposition in this town, where 41% of babies are aborted, so NYC was low-hanging fruit that was easy picking.
Third, New York prides itself on its liberalism. The protection of all civil rights (which is how abortion has been marketed) is a big deal here in NYC.
But all of this is undergirded by a deeper driving force for the national campaign against pregnancy centers. In a word:
Sonograms.
They’re inexpensive, and come in laptop form.
Yesterday at the City Council session, the bill’s proponents were nearly unanimous in pointing to the sonograms as ‘evidence’ that PRC’s were masquerading as doctor’s offices. That’s the cover story for the legislation, and a pathetic one at best. We are being asked to believe that a woman entering a PRC does not know that she is not in an abortion center, because there is a sonogram technician with a machine showing the young woman images of what is within her womb.
They fear the sonogram, because the technology is so overwhelmingly convincing for mothers, as it was for Dr. Bernard Nathanson. So the new strategy is to erect barriers between abortion-minded women and the machines posing an existential threat to the abortion industry, in the form of forced disclaimers at the door, in the waiting rooms, on advertising, and on the phone.
Yesterday was the other side’s most desperate hour. This piece of legislation will now go on to the courts where it will face almost certain defeat.
At yesterday’s City Council session, Speaker Quinn announced that the reason the bill was being moved up a few weeks for a vote was to enable the bill’s sponsor, Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, the privilege of being present when her pet project was passed…
… before Lappin delivers her own baby in a few weeks.
Coming Home 
Hi Gerard,
I am looking forward to your future blogs concerning 371. I heard that Jim Gennaro, once a prolifer and supporter of The Bridge to Life, Inc. supported the bill and gave a speech to say why he supported it. I called his office to ask for the text of the speech. His media person couldn’t give me any information. He wasn’t present.
Seeing that you were there, could you give me some information. I have know Mr. Gennaro for many years now. His daughter and mine are friends. I’d would like to know what he said.
I called his office prior to the vote and his aid didn’t know what I was referring to.
Peter Koo will be visiting Bridge next Wed. We would love to also show you around the place. Wed. is when women come for material assistance.
Just give us a call.
THank you for getting the word out.
Sincerely,
Cathy Donohoe, President of the BOD, The Bridge to Life.
Lord, have mercy. (That’s a prayer, not just an expression.)
“Speaker Quinn announced that the reason the bill was being moved up a few weeks for a vote was to enable the bill’s sponsor, Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, the privilege of being present when her pet project was passed…
… before she delivers her own baby in a few weeks. ”
Of course we ASSUME that the only reason Quinn’s baby is alive is because she/he was “wanted”.
So much for “choice”. Proaborts are for abortion and nothing more. At any cost. Any time. Any where.
Heaven help the mother who sees andsonogram. She just might not “choose’ life over death for her baby. And PP would lose all those $$$
I know that you and others worked very very hard to prevent this from happening.
Just remember God has a plan in all this. I believe he will bring much good out of what has happened here.
You did good.
[…] Dr. Gerard Nadal, who was at the hearings when the NYC ‘muzzle law’ aimed at crippling pregnancy centers passed, writes about The Passage of Bill 371 and its True Target. […]
sorry I have “mouse” issues on my computer:
Heaven help the mother who sees a sonogram. She just might not “choose’ death for her baby. And PP would lose all those $$$
my mouse copied and pasted over stuff in the reverse order. 😦
BTW I recently saw that L has left your blog, has blogged about it on her blog and linked back to your blog. What goes around comes around on blogging.
MC,
Lappin is having the baby. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. Fixing.
Dr. Nadal, do you expect the ordinance to be stayed (if that’s the right word–not to go into effect) while it is in the courts? I assume that the CPCs will immediately sue for it to be struck down, following the Baltimore ruling that it is unconstitutional.
Also, I was reading a WND story that referred to this as probably “shutting down” the CPCs because they wouldn’t have the “manpower” to implement it. Surely that is not true. It’s a terrible law for many, many reasons, and it should be fought tooth and nail. Lord willing it will be struck down in the courts as unconstitutional. But I also hope the CPCs would not necessarily be forced by it to close their doors.
Lydia,
The Courts in NY are somewhere to the left of Mao, so an injunction is unlikely. This one will have to make its way to Federal District Court, and finally the Supreme Court.
Oh, yes, I was expecting that the suit would be brought in federal court. The state courts will have nothing to say about it if it’s brought as a federal suit. Sometimes such things do have an injunction put on them while a suit is brought.
What kind of devil would go after a pregancy care center? These are loving, kind people who work at these centers who simple just want to help pregnant mothers. Often not paid at all, certainly not by taxes…
My Catholic parish donates all of the time to our local CPC, run mostly by Catholics, what do you know…
Jess Lappin, a real piece of human sewage, may she rot in depths of hell with her wimpy Mayor Bloomberg.
I don’t think it was your writing Dr. Nadal. I think it was my faulty reading……
The sad thing is that the vote wasn’t even close. It seems like most of them had their minds made up from the very beginning.
I only have one comment, No Sonogram is just plain, bad medicine!
How PATHETIC that Quinn, Lapin and cohorts resorted to lies and Political pressure to pass this bill. What about Sisters of LIFE, Abortion Alternatives and Bridges to LIFE is deceptive? Hiding behind the mask of protecting womens’ rights, they shield PPH whose abortion practices have caused women sterility and life long regret. I heartily agree with Dr. Nadal that it is when the sonogram shown to the women at Pregnancy Resource Centers proves the life in her womb is a BABY not a “blob” that SHE chooses LIFE. How many of those 39 votes were secured by cracking the Party whip,”Play nice OR your Career is DOA”? How long before the council members willingness to compromise will cause them to sell their souls?
The fact that the sponsor of this bill is herself carrying a child within her is …. well, it’s morbid.
It’s not good enough that 4 out of every 10 children conceived in that city are killed before they ever take a breath. The pro-abortion crowd has to do more to suppress those who offer a choice – a real choice – to pregnant women.
If there is is any consolation for pro-life advocates, South Dakota passed a law requiring a ‘cooling off’ period. No longer will abortion clinics be able to take advantage of the panic that many women who learn they are pregnant are overwhelmed with. No longer will they be able to take that anxiety and lead them into that room where their ‘problem’ will ‘be taken care of.’
I pray for New York.
I find it interesting, she is allowed to have the joy of a baby, but hindering other women to have the same joy.
I think you’re right about the sonogram. The testimony at the Nov. hearing by the director of Dr. Emily’s abortion mill in the Bronx was almost exclusively about her frustration with the sonogram bus that offers free sonograms outside her mill.
Dr. Emily’s does not turn the sonogram screen toward the mother nor do they turn the sound on!
sort of a foolish question…….the sonogram? The transponder thing? is it cheap? cheap-ish? b/c the software? the computer?
I’m a parent. I’ve been marketed ear things to check for ear infections. There was a piece of equipment, and a laminated card showing infected ear drums. Not enough to diagnose, just enough to see if the eardrum was inflamed, and we needed to go to the doctor.
Would the transponder be cheap? b/c I can see a transponder hooked up to a regular laptop, and transmitting to a main server site. And if it’s cheap, and you have you and your friends doing at home sonograms???? That’s not subject to regulations and lawsuits, right? Not diagnostic ones- just- seeing baby ones. and if it’s cool- invite your pregnant friends. It would be like those silly heartbeat things that movies show dads really loving.
and it would be mostly private, like pee-sticks checking for pregnancy, or for ovulation.
Jenny Mccarthy sells a contraption and software for exercising. One takes a computer cam, and then this software….why not sell a plug in transponder, hook up to a website- or a few, crowdsourced, so you can’t sue one provider and shut the whole thing down- and then scan your own baby, in the privacy of your own home? Do the education- it’s a bean-looking thing early on….and then set a comedian or two or three on it, to normalize it? You can’t disappear comedy snark bits, and that seems to move guys’ brains. Knocked Up changed the baby debate for guys, more than any lecture, for instance. Daniel Tosh is revolting, but his “I Heart Abortion” tee-shirt, with “Problem Solved” on the back- he followed it up with ” Go back to your selfish life” and ” you whore” I was so stunned- imagine- “My sperm has legs!” and so on. It would be a normalized technological hack.
just thinking out loud.