BY BEN JOHNSON

McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who is now running for governor against pro-life stalwart Ken Cuccinelli, said he will take executive action to sidestep the requirements on behalf of subpar abortion facilities.

Reviewing the circumstances of abortion facilities in the Old Dominion, he said, “Norfolk is closed.Fairfax is closed, or closing, so there will be 18 [abortion facilities] left.”

“Only one of those 18 actually meet the requirements, so they'll all close” without an assist from a friendly governor.

“I will issue what's called a guidance opinion by mid-March ,” he said, “to grandfather in those remaining clinics to keep them open.”

“That's why this election is so important, and I will do that." he vowed.

Steve Rossie of the Virginia-based Family Foundation said that McAuliffe “has made clear during the campaign that he opposes the standards, enabled as part of a bipartisan law passed during the 2011 General Assembly, but this is the first time he has said he will repeal or alter them Barack-Obama-style by some type of executive action without legislative approval.”

He calls the promise “reckless,” especially in light of Kermit Gosnell, who routinely flouted Pennsylvania state law and health standards that had not been enforced under multiple administrations.

“Remember, it was then-Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge who ignored the law in that state requiring abortion center inspections that allowed Gosnell to go unnoticed for years, harming untold numbers of women and children,” Rossie said.

According to the group Women Speak Out, “the Virginia Health Commissioner reported to the Board of Health that more than 80 violations were discovered in abortion centers.”

The Virginia showdown, now seven weeks away, is considered the most important race in the nation, and a possible precusor of how the state will vote in the 2016 presidential election.

Polls show McAuliffe with a modest edge.

However, he enjoys a significant advantage in fundraising. The former DNC chairman has extensive contacts around the country, as well as deep ties to the Clinton family.

Former President Clinton sent McAuliffe $100,000 from his own funds.

Tom Steyer, a California-based billionaire and environmentalist activist, has spent $400,000 for attack ads against Cuccinelli.

McAuliffe met earlier this month with retiring New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Independent billionaire who favors abortion-on-demand, gay “marriage,”nanny state health regulations, and gun control.

The abortion lobby long ago cast its lot with McAuliffe. Planned Parenthood teamed up with McAuliffeto launch the attack website, Keep Ken Out.

McAuliffe and his allies have used pro-abortion donations to finance an ad accusing Cuccinelli of waging a “war on abortion” and a mass mailing accusing the attorney general of being “way out there.”

Most recently, NARAL Virginia released undercover audio of a volunteer purportedly catching crisis pregnancy centers staff telling “lies” to pregnant women, although Adam Cassandra of Human Life International notes that the audio “contains zero falsehoods.”

Cuccinelli has earned the abortion industry's ire, voting to overturn then-Democratic Governor Mark Warner's veto of the partial birth abortion ban, drafting the state's parental consent law, leading efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, and insisting the state's abortion facilities meet the same health standards as other surgical centers.

Last April, the state attorney general said that LifeSiteNews.com is "the homepage for one of the computers in our house" at a fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C.

He explained to Tony Perkins on AFR Talk Thursday afternoon that the importance of the race is that it will be “the first step back for conservatives if we can win in 2013, as we head toward 2014.”

In the midterm elections, Republicans hope to retain control of the House and take back the U.S. Senate.

But Cuccinelli said, although many people wish him well, significant financial “support hasn't been there.”

“I could really use the help at Cuccinelli.com,” he said.

Update: The Huffington Post assessed the "dramatic toll" that recent pro-life lawshave taken on abortion clinics, with Arizona leading the way. Meanwhile, the abortion battle has gone digital as more states ban abortions by telemedicine.

CT has examined the new pro-life surge in-depth.

(BP) For Abby Johnson, the closing of a single Planned Parenthood center demonstrated her dramatic reversal from abortion clinic director to leading pro-life advocate.

But for pro-lifers throughout the United States, it marked another exhibit in a hopeful trend—abortion centers are shutting down at an unprecedented rate. The total so far this year is 44, according to a pro-life organization that tracks clinic operations.

None was more telling for Johnson than the mid-July closing of the Planned Parenthood center in Bryan, Texas. It came less than four years after Johnson, burdened by her involvement with abortion, walked out of that clinic as its director and into the offices of the Coalition for Life.

"Knowing that the former abortion clinic I once ran is now closing is the biggest personal victory of my life," Johnson said in a written statement after the announcement of the shutdown. "From running that facility, to then advocating for its closure, and now celebrating that dream ... it shows that my life has indeed come full circle."

Since her celebrated conversion from Planned Parenthood director, Johnson has started a ministry to help workers leave the abortion industry. She has pledged, as she said in July, to "fight until every abortion clinic in this country has shut its doors."

This year, 42 clinics that provided surgical abortions have shut their doors, and two that offered chemical abortions by drugs also have closed, according to Operation Rescue, which monitors closings and health and safety violations by clinics nationwide. That number far surpasses the 25 surgical clinics shutdown last year and the 30 in 2011, by Operation Rescue's count. While others estimate a smaller number of closings, the pattern is clear.

Some of the shutdowns have been of major clinics. For instance, Virginia's No. 1 abortion provider closed, The Washington Post reported in July. NOVA Women's Healthcare in Fairfax, Va., shut down after state and local governments enacted regulations the abortion provider appeared unable to meet. The northern Virginia clinic performed 3,066 abortions in 2012 and 3,567 in 2011.

The reasons given for the upswing in closings are varied even among pro-lifers. They include:

-- the increasing state regulation and oversight of clinics;

-- a growth in pro-life opinion and activity, and

-- a significant decline in the abortion rate.

In some cases, clinics have shut down when abortion doctors retired or were no longer licensed.

State legislatures enacted 69 pro-life laws this year, according to a report released Thursday (Sept. 5) by Americans United for Life. In all, 48 states considered about 360 such proposals in 2013, AUL reported.

The legislative action this year continued a recent trend in states: 70 "life-affirming measures" became law in 2011 and 38 in 2012, according to AUL.

Some measures have targeted making the procedure and clinics safer for women, and have helped escalate the number of clinic shutdowns. This year, states such as Alabama, North Carolina and Texas passed varied laws either requiring abortion clinics to meet the same health and safety standards as outpatient surgical centers, or authorizing the state to enforce such requirements. Also, in 2013, North Dakota and Wisconsin joined Alabama and Texas in mandating abortion doctors have admitting privileges at local hospitals.

Editor's note: Read the full Baptist Press article here. CT has previously reported on abortion clinic restrictions and legislation restricting abortion. CT also covered pro-life groups exposing abortion practices and how pro-lifers are winning theabortion battle.

Pro-life activists gathered on the twelfth anniversary of the September 11 attacks at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia, to expose an African-American abortionist found to be preying on women of color.

“As America remembered the terrible attack on 9-11, I stood in front of Planned Parenthood in Virginia Beach,” said Dr. Day Gardner, President of the National Black Pro-Life Union in Washington, D.C. “I prayed knowing that while this 

The pro-life activists held signs with Tamer Middleton’s photo and name in front of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. Middleton is a “fly-in” abortionist who is known to work at abortion clinics in predominately Black neighborhoods, including Planned Parenthood in Mobile, Alabama, and a Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where late-term abortions are done. Ironically, medical licensing sites list her “specialty” as “Family Medicine.”

The group also objects to the fact that Middleton, who is based in Georgia, travels to Virginia Beach to abort babies then leaves the state, providing no continuity of care to women suffering from complications from abortions.

Their fears for the safety of women and the lives of babies are well-founded. Operation Rescue published photos taken by a local activist of an ambulance at the same Planned Parenthood and a 911 recording revealing a life-threatening medical emergency that put one patient in the hospital in October, 2011.

For more information about Tamer Middleton, please visit AbortionDocs.org.

LifeNews.com Note: Cheryl Sullenger is a leader of Operation Rescue, a pro-life that monitors abortion practitioners and exposes their illegal and unethical practices.

BY LIFESITENEWS.COM

Albuquerque, NM, September 9, 2013 (OperationRescue.org) – The Albuquerque Journal released results of a poll today that shows 54% of Albuquerque voters support the proposed municipal ban on abortions after 20 weeks, when babies are known to feel pain. Only 39% opposed the ordinance.

The late-term abortion ban particularly enjoyed favor among Hispanic people, 57% of whom support the ordinance regardless of party affiliation. Those who identified as Republicans expressed an overwhelming 80% support for the ordinance.

This is the first known effort to ban late-term abortions on the municipal level. Albuquerque holds the dubious distinction of being known as the “Late-term Capital of America” because it is the site of Southwestern Women’s Options, the largest late-term abortion clinic in the U.S.

“This poll shows what we have been saying all along, that the proposed Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance has wide support in Albuquerque. Putting this ordinance to a vote is the right thing to do,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “Late-term abortion is a barbaric and dangerous practice that has no place in a civilized society. There are better, more compassionate alternatives for women in the late stages of pregnancy than inflicting upon them and their babies the brutality of abortion.”

Organizers used the legislative initiative process to get the ban on a city-wide ballot after it became clear that the predominately pro-abortion Democratic state legislature would not act. Needing only about 12,000 signatures of registered voters to place the ordinance on the ballot, organizers gathered a remarkable 27,000 signatures in 20 days.

City Council President Dan Lewis, who says he supports the late-term abortion ban, has indicated that he will introduce a resolution at the next city council meeting on Monday to place the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance on a city-wide ballot on November 19th. The election would be conducted via a mail-in ballot. That resolution is expected to be adopted by the city council.

Tara Shaver of Project Defending Life acts as spokesperson for the ordinance effort. She gathered documentation through open records requests that indicated ambulances were transporting women to hospital emergency rooms from Southwestern Women’s Options at an alarming rate. Over a dozen 911 records showed women were experiencing life-threatening complications to abortions as late as 35 weeks ranging from a ruptured uterus to heavy hemorrhage. Southwestern Women’s Options is a freestanding abortion clinic that is not equipped to handle serious complications that arise from the risky late abortions.

Last month, Operation Rescue staff members participated in a pro-life training conference in Albuquerque, which was followed by street protests conducted by Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Abortion supporters criticized the protests as “outsiders” trying to affect city policies. However, Newman has a different take on who the “outsiders” really are.

“Both of the clinic’s primary abortionists, Shelley Sella and Susan Robinson, fly in to Albuquerque from California to do the abortions then fly out again. Neither hold local hospital privileges. In fact, the clinic is owned by Texas abortionist Curtis Boyd. They are the ones coming in to Albuquerque to cause issues,” said Newman. “The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance is truly a grass-roots effort put forward by people who live in Albuquerque, like the Shavers. It is supported by pro-life groups around the country because women from every state are currently traveling to Albuquerque to have these dangerous abortions at the latest stages of pregnancy. The poll confirms that it is the out-of state abortionists who are out-of-step with the people of Albuquerque.”

While critics say the ordinance is illegal since it runs contrary to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that decriminalized abortion, pro-life activists argue that Supreme Court precedent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey narrowed the Roe ruling, allowing states to regulate and even ban late-term abortions. Bans similar to Albuquerque’s proposed ordinance have been passed in 11 states and introduced at the Federal level.

“This ordinance has a high probability of success, given the popular support in the community, and we are confident it will pass constitutional muster if it is ever challenged,” said Newman.

BY KIRSTEN ANDERSEN

The chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa blasted two Democratic candidates for governor for standing by while a woman prayed for continued access to abortion during a political rally in the Capitol last week.

Party Chairman A.J. Spiker called the prayer, delivered by Midge Slater of the Iowa Alliance for Retired Americans, “sick, twisted and disgusting” and faulted candidates Tyler Olson and Jack Hatch for not indicating their disapproval of it.

“Praying to God and thanking Him for abortions, and then asking for his guidance to provide more abortions, is one of the most atrocious things I’ve ever heard of,” Spiker said in a lengthy prepared statement.

He added, “If this is what Olson and Hatch think will help them in their race to defeat Terry Branstad in 2014, then it shows just how unbelievably out of touch they are with everyday Iowans and how poorly they’re going to perform come election time.”

The prayer was held near the beginning of an “Iowa Women Deserve Better” rally at the Capitol shortly before a meeting of the state Board of Medicine on a proposed rule barring the use of telemedicine in medication abortions.

The purpose of the rally was specifically to defend legal access to abortion.

Both Olson, a state representative from Cedar Rapids, and Hatch, a state Senator from Des Moines, spoke at the event, as did state Sen. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, and state Rep. Marti Anderson, D-Des Moines. All four stood near the lectern as Slater delivered the prayer with their heads bowed.

In the prayer, (posted online here by The Iowa Republican blog) Slater thanked God for doctors who perform abortions and prayed for their safety. She also prayed that elected officials support “a woman’s right to make her own medical decision” and for continued access to “all forms of birth control.”

“We give thanks and celebrate that abortion is still safe and legal,” Slater said.

In an interview with the Register on Thursday, Olson reiterated his support for access to abortion but said he couldn’t speak to anyone else’s view on the matter.

“I believe that the decision should not be made at state Capitol. It should be made between a woman, her doctor, her family, her faith community, whoever she wants to include in that,” he said. “That’s my position, it has been my position, it will be my position and I don’t speak for anybody else.”

Calls to Hatch were not immediately returned.

At a simultaneous rally held by abortion opponents at a nearby church, organizers distributed a “prayer guide” containing several suggested prayers underscoring opposition to abortion. Many attendees read off the sheet as they prayed silently in the church sanctuary.

One of the prayers asked forgiveness “for allowing the telemed abortion distribution system to exist in our state and deliver us from this great evil.”

Another thanked the Lord for “the newly appointed Iowa Board of Medicine who voted to review the distribution of the dangerous RU-486 abortion drug thru telemedicine.” It continued, “May the Lord endow them with wisdom and understanding.”

BY BEN JOHNSON

Wed Aug 28, 2013 14:28 EST

The State Senate passed AB154 by a 25-11 vote on Monday. The bill would authorize midwives, nurse practitioners, and physicians’ assistants to perform first-trimester suction aspiration abortions.

Lou Correa of Anaheim was the only Democrat to vote against the bill, which was introduced by Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, D-San Diego.

If the state Assembly passes the amended bill and Governor Jerry Brown signs it into law, California will become the fifth state to allow – or at least not ban – the practice, joining Montana, New York, Oregon, and Vermont.

“The growing shortage of abortion providers creates a significant barrier for women,” according to State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara.Toni Atkins introduced the bill.

The Guttmacher Institute reports that in 2008 nearly one-third of all the nation's abortion providers -- more than 500 -- worked in California.

Live Action founder Lila Rose said the bill would allow Planned Parenthood “to kill unborn children at lower costs, as they would not have to pay a doctor.”

“In the wake of Kermit Gosnell, in whose abortion facility a woman died from an untrained staff member's mistake, it's unthinkable for lawmakers in California to push a law like this,” Rose said.

A study conducted by Tracy Weitz, director of UC-San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, found that abortions performed by non-physicians had twice the rate of complications as those performed by doctors. However, Dr. Weitz called the difference “clinically equivalent.”

The push to enable midwives and other non-physcicians to perform abortions is a growing trend in the West and elsewhere across the globe. At the Women Deliver conference earliler this year in Kuala Lumpur, Malysia, representatives of the population control lobby discussed using midwives as a vehicle for increasing the number of worldwide abortions. 

“Abortion backers say they care about the health and safety of women but their action show they just want more abortions, even if that means lower medical standards,” Rose said.

Readers may contact California assembly members of the committee, by visiting www.leginfo.ca.gov