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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
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LITTLE NOTES
March 2006
ABORTIONIST SURRENDERS LICENSE. Dr. Laurence Reich, purported owner of Clinica Medica Para La Mujer De Hoy in Chula Vista, surrendered his license to the California Osteopathic Board on February 15, about a week before the hearing regarding revocation of his license. The Osteopathic Board will allow Reich, who has a record of two criminal convictions for sexually abusing women during physical examinations, to continue practicing until April 14, 2006.
Dr. Reich has cash-only abortion businesses throughout Southern California, and he targets primarily Spanish speaking women. For an abortion in the first trimester he charges $400 cash.
In 1999 and 2002, two women filed complaints with the Osteopathic Board that Reich had sexually violated them. When the Board finally filed their accusation, the attorney general's office agreed to a weak "stipulated decision" which would allow Reich to keep his license. However, that agreement was rejected by the Osteopathic Board and returned for a full hearing. Thus, it took state authorities four to five years after the violations were brought to their attention to finally take action to protect other women.
Even though he has surrendered his license, the Osteopathic Board does not require him to tell patients of his license status or history.
Reich has several associates who operate at his business sites:
Dr. John Rivera, has an official Medical Board accusation against him that details how he publicly grabbed a woman's vagina while under the influence of narcotics.
George Flanigan, M.D. was convicted for Medi-Cal fraud and has a Medical Board accusation against him detailing how his negligence caused the death of "Baby Girl Rodriguez."
Concerned citizens may join other protesters at the Clinica Medica Para La Mujer De Hoy site, 1550 Broadway, Chula Vista on any Wednesday or Friday.
MORE THAN 150 PRO-LIFERS showed up on Saturday morning, January 21, to observe the 33rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. There were enough people crowded in front of the Family Planning Associates abortion mill on Sixth Avenue, in downtown San Diego, to prompt several participants to move across the street, in front of Balboa Park. A large Catholic group prayed the Rosary and sidewalk counselors were on hand, as they are on most Saturday mornings at FPA. "I saw two or three women enter the clinic before our vigil started and only four or five went in during the over one hour that so many Christians were present," organizer Sue Lopez reported. "This is far less than normally go in on any Saturday morning."
"Please don't just save this thing for one day in January," Phil Magnan of Biblical Family Advocates, exhorted the crowd. "We should have this many people in front of this clinic every week. Our presence here makes a huge difference, even if you're not able to talk to someone. I've heard some testimonies of people who were involved in abortion, people who were involved in the clinics. They know for a fact that the place begins to shut down when the people of God show up."
Next, Kent Peters, director of the diocesan social ministry office, urged participants to persuade others to become more actively involved in the pro-life movement. "I haven't seen one of the Catholic priests from our diocese here today," he observed. "I think we need to pray for them, we need to stay close to them, we need to love them into joining us. In the Catholic Church, it's the age of the laity. It's good that we're here, but believe me, many more people would make that decision if they saw a pastor here. But don't pester, don't become an irritant. Give them a loving, gentle invitation to join you next time you come. Pray for our religious leaders, that they be more visible and make a decision to do this [pray or sidewalk counsel at abortion mills] on a regular basis with those who do it every week or every two or three weeks."
Heather Mechanic, a veteran pro-life activist and sidewalk counselor followed Peters. "Abortion exists in this country because we in the church have not stood solidly and said 'No more!,'" she said. "If we had this kind of a group every Saturday ... we've had very few women go up today and that's because it's very intimidating to see all of you; they have to think about what they're doing."
Mechanic commented on medical research which indicates that babies may be even more sensitive to pain while in the womb than after birth. "Please hear the screams of our children," she concluded. "It is our duty to reach out to the preborn. You don't need to do sidewalk counseling, but we do need people here to pray."
After more than an hour at Family Planning and Associates, 80 persons holding pro-life signs walked one mile to the Planned Parenthood Surgical Center on First Avenue. State Senator Bill Morrow, a candidate for the 50th congressional district, met the group as they assembled there. He delivered a passionate speech on the sanctity of human life, citing sacred scripture and the Declaration of Independence. "We have all heard [from abortion advocates] that we must show compassion to the mothers, because it is an agonizing decision. If, as they say, a fetus is [just] some sort of protoplasm, nothing more than the ends of your fingernails or toenails that can be clipped off, why show compassion toward the mothers? It's one of two things: either they are lying about the professed compassion, or they are unwittingly revealing to all of us what God has instilled in their consciences, and that is they know that is abortion is wrong."
Kent Peters spoke again at Planned Parenthood, dispensing the following advice for pro-life sidewalk counselors, "You should know that most of the words that are said are not even heard. There is so much terror going on in the mind, and what young women need to hear is that you care about them. The time I've seen babies saved is when the sidewalk counselor was able to get the young woman to stop in the first place, look her in the eye and say, 'We care about you, we love you, and we love your baby.'"
Peters also related a sidewalk counselor's experience indicating that there are many couples willing to adopt even children with disabilities, in response to the pro-abortion mantra that no 'unwanted' child should be born.
Pastor Adlai Mack, of Christians United in the Word of God Church, who had also spoken at Family Planning Associates, prayed for conversion from sin. Phil Magnan also led the group in prayer, and prayed for the Planned Parenthood security guard standing nearby. The prayer vigil concluded with the group praying the Lord's Prayer together. A KUSI photographer was seen at the gathering at Planned Parenthood. Phil Magnan, himself an Evangelical Christian, told a News Notes reporter that about 100 of the participants in the January 21 event were Catholics and he expressed satisfaction that there has been a significant upsurge in the number of Catholics involved in public pro-life activism over the last couple of years.
On Sunday evening, January 22, about 200 people gathered in front of the County Administration Building along North Harbor Drive for a pro-life candlelight prayer vigil. Senator Morrow spoke again at this event, as did Pastor Mack who led several hymns with all attendees surrounding him in a large semi-circle. Also present at this event was Father John Hritzko, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Ukrainian Catholic Church in La Mesa, and a nun in her habit, standing next to a large missionary image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Lopez, in an email report she sent out after the events, wrote, "Good News Etc. sent a photographer to this vigil and put Pastor Mack preaching to the crowd on the cover of their February issue. Fox 6 News sent a reporter and photographer and covered it at 10 p.m. KUSI gave us great and extended coverage. They interviewed me and a young man in the crowd who comes regularly to the clinic. They showed Pastor Mack holding his bible in the air and declaring, 'The Word of God says, "Thou shall not kill."' They panned the crowd several times showing all the teens, young children, and people praying. Senator Morrow was also shown. They covered the pro-choice brunch also: primarily older women, no children, except for one baby held by his father. The contrast was stark: pro-death means old and no children. Pro-life means joy, young and old, and lots of children. In fact, their closing shot was a close-up of my friend Erica's belly, pregnant with her sixth child, and her rosary hanging in front of her. KUSI ran the story in shortened form twice the next morning."
SAINT JOHN'S ENCINITAS HOSTED A WOMEN'S RETREAT titled "Song of the Seed" given by Sister Macria Wiederkher on the evening of January 20 and the following day. Sister Macrina is a Benedictine nun from Saint Scholastica's Monastery in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Approximately 55 women attended the nine-hour retreat. The New Age material offered at the retreat upset a few of the attendees enough for them to complain to their pastor and inform a News Notes reporter. A perusal of Sister Macrina's website (macrinawiederkehr.com) offers a few clues as to why the women of Saint John's were upset with the retreat. On the website, Sister Macrina describes herself in this way, "I am creative, restless, joyful, honest, gentle, friendly, poetic, enthusiastic, impulsive, anxious, procrastinating, open, carefree. I love cozy places, candles, special cups, silence, rain, thunder storms, mornings, homemade bread, pine trees, owls, mourning doves, porches and blue birds. I feel grateful, curious, hopeful, fearful at times, overwhelmed, poor and rich. I need solitude, God, friends, nature, laughter, tears, beauty, enriching life, challenge, days off, interesting conversations, good movies and books. I fear violence, conflict, greed, narrow mindedness, deadlines, prejudice. I like to give encouragement, blessings, inspiration, surprises, tea parties, affirmation. I would like to see the aurora borealis, a whooping crane, Switzerland, open communion in the Roman Catholic Church, women priests, nations and individuals reverencing one another's differences, a world free from greed, fear and violence."
RON NEHRING, SAN DIEGO COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIRMAN and California Republican Party vice-chairman, spoke at the January 26 meeting of the East County unit of the California Republican Assembly. The assembly works to elect Republican candidates who are faithful to the Republican Party platform, including its planks defending the sanctity of life and traditional marriage. The meeting featured a panel discussion on abortion politics and the new parental notification initiative. Accompanying Nehring as panelists were Maria Guadalupe Garcia, former congressional candidate and current representative of the Parents Right to Know campaign, and Phil Magnan, director of Biblical Family Advocates.
Nehring arrived approximately 20 minutes after the panel discussion had started. Meeting attendees peppered him with questions, most centered on the fact that the local GOP has, at times, supported liberal Republican candidates who hold positions on moral issues that are at odds with the Repub lican Party platform. Garcia and Magnan commented on some of Nehring's responses, in addition to fielding several questions on other issues, particularly parental notification.
Audience member Allyson Smith mentioned that the local Republican Party had endorsed Jerry Sanders for San Diego mayor, and on December 5, Sanders had voted for a City Council proclamation honoring Mark Salo, the retiring chief of the regional Planned Parenthood empire. "Why is it," Smith asked, "that we have candidates like this that are endorsed by the party, that get up there and totally flout everything that's listed in the party platform?"
Nehring's response: "I think it's important for individuals who are concerned about that to voice that to the mayor's office directly. The Republican Party is a campaign organization and we are not in a position -- under our system here in California and in the United States generally -- parties are much weaker in the United States than they are, for example, in Europe. The ability to impose some sort of discipline is simply nonexistent in cases like that. So it's up to individual groups and organizations to make their opinions on matters like that known.... If you place all your faith in that the biggest problems of our times are going to be solved by politicians, you'll always be disappointed, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat. That's why we cannot rely solely on the government to solve these problems.... For the strength of the conservative movement, you have to have lots of different tools. The Party is one of them, but the CRA is another tool, initiatives are another tool, think tanks, -- there are a variety of different tools that are available in order to try to move the ball forward. There's no one institution that's going to be able to do all of that."
Challenged on the repeated backing of pro-abortion Republicans by the local Republican party, Nehring responded, "I do have a bias in this case. I myself am pro-life. However, in the United States, Republican candidates are nominated in a primary election. Republican voters choose Republican nominees and usually that's a pro-life person, but sometimes it's not. The Party has an obligation to support all of its candidates."
Asked if the moral gap between Democrats and Republicans is closing, he answered, "I am absolutely certain that John Kerry would not have nominated Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. It would have been some other Ruth Bader Ginsburg type of liberal, and we would have been worse off than we were before."
When another audience member confessed a sense of despair with regard to the state of the Republican party, Nehring's response was, "If you put all your faith in that government is going to solve the problems, we will consistently be disappointed.... As conservatives, we're not supposed to be the ones who rely on the government to fix things; that's what the liberals try to do: create a government program to solve everything. We have to be involved ... but we will not solve that problem solely with politicians and elected officials...."
At this point, Garcia asserted that Republican support of traditional moral values induces some socially conservative Democrats to vote for conservative Republicans, and she further asserted that moral and life issues are winning issues. As she had done earlier in the evening, Garcia emphasized that Republicans should not apologize for the GOP's pro-life and pro-family stances. She maintained that an effective strategy is to go on the offensive about them, rather than allow opponents to put moral conservatives on the defensive.
Phil Magan interjected, "I think it's true that government won't solve all of our problems, but I think you have to ask the question, 'What is government for then?'" Magnan interjected. "Government is there to establish laws to protect its citizens. When government fails to do that, it ceases to be the real government. We shouldn't be saying, 'Well, we're going to protect the unborn like they're some other kind of people.' No, we're protecting our citizens. And the government does have a compelling interest to protect all of its citizens."