Report on the Montgomery County Council Hearing

As previously announced, the Montgomery County Council held a public hearing on its proposed regulations thinly disguised to cripple pro-life pregnancy centers in the county.  I arrived 20 minutes early, but even at that time, the hearing room was already full and some of us were directed to the cafeteria where a closed-circuit television was set up to allow us to watch the hearings.  The audience in that cafeteria was largely pro-life.  Personnel from the Archdiocese of Washington and the Maryland Catholic Conference were present, as were a few priests.  That will explain some of the background noise that you might hear in the videos.  I must say that some of the ridiculous statements made by supporters of the regulations did promote understandable laughter amongst us.

The hearing was lengthy.  I caught an hour of it on my camcorder.  When that was filled to capacity, I had to switch to a digital voice recorder and cell-phone camera.  With these electronic toys, I did manage to capture the majority of the hearing.  It is taking a while to go through the raw data, make my selections and to organize everything.  Some of the clips are uploaded to youtube and some still are yet to be.  However, to keep my report timely and relevant, I'm not going to wait until the data is all processed.  Other items will be in forthcoming postings.  The postings and comments do not necessarily occur in chronological order.  I will also apologize in advance for the black band that you'll see running across the video clips; that can happen when one electronic device (camcorder) records another electronic device (tv).   So now the report begins.

As stated previously, a similar attempt on the pregnancy centers was made at the state level two years ago; happily, that was thwarted.  One of the speakers was MD State Delegate Roger Manno (D-19).  As are most of the Montgomery County delegates, Manno is a pro-abortion politician.  However, when one testifies, they may have to tell the truth, albeit reluctantly.  Watch the following clip to see how Manno has trouble acknowledging the simple truth that a pregnant woman carries a baby.  (Click here if you can't see embedded videos)



See how these pro-abortion people have such trouble admitting common-sense truth?  By the way - go to Manno's website and take a look at the logos of groups endorsing him.  I see NOW's logo, as well as NARAL's.  Some other interesting ones are those of Equality Maryland and the SEIU (as in the thugs who intimidated several townhall attendees throughout the nation).  But - I digress!

As I said, I'm going to jump around a bit.  Anyone could sign up to testify.  Those who did so were asked to come up in groups; these groups had pro-abortion folks and pro-life folks intersperced.  In the upcoming clip, you'll hear Laura Myers of Planned Parenthood of Metro DC followed by Gail Tierney of the Rockville Pregnancy Center.  Listen to Myers try to convince listeners that plain medical truths are lies.  Her comment that women going into pregnancy centers "are walking into a trap" is simply perjorative.  Then she complains that "the sole intent of a cpc is to dissuade women from terminating a pregnancy."  Substitute "killing her child and scarring herself for life" for "terminating a pregnancy" and she just might have that right.

When Gail testifies, you'll hear her remark about "fake clients" (to which we do chuckle).  NARAL alleges that they sent young women to scope out several cpcs.  In the report to which we linked earlier, their "findings" were presented; however, such findings lacked interesting details - like dates of visits, name of cpc personnel, etc.  (Click here if you can't see embedded videos)



I'll close this installment with another video.  This one is of Msgr Mark Brennan.  Currently, he is pastor of St. Martin of Tours in Gaithersburg.  He was on the board of directors of Shady Grove Pregnancy Center.  Notice that his testimony directly refutes pro-abortion lies, as he testifies to the reality of post-abortion stress syndrome that he found in people whom he counseled.  He makes plain his awareness of the pro-abortion bias of the majority of the County Council, yet he appeals to their civic consciences.  (Click here if you can't see embedded videos)



I'll close this segment of my report.  I invite comments, particularly from those who also attended the hearing.