Albin Rhomberg

Last updated

Albin Rhomberg is an American anti-abortion activist and physicist based in Sacramento, California.

In 1978, while Rhomberg was a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, he joined students Susan Erzinger and Peggy Pattonin in refusing to pay a student registration fee that financed an insurance plan that had provisions for health services including pregnancy counseling and abortion. After the students were denied registration materials they filed a complaint in San Diego County Superior Court against the University's regents. [1] [2] [3]

In 1982 Rhomberg broke into the Los Angeles County Coroner's office to photograph aborted fetuses who were seized during a raid on an abortion clinic, Inglewood Women's owned by Morton Barke. [4] He later led pickets at abortion clinics in Sacramento [5] and became director the Center for Documentation of the American Holocaust. [6]

Rhomberg was among eight protesters who disrupted an ecumenical prayer service held as part of the inauguration of California Governor Pete Wilson on January 6, 1991. The protesters denounced Wilson's pro-choice stance at the Sacramento's Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament and were placed under citizen's arrest before being booked at Sacramento County Jail. [7] [8] Rhomberg later sued Governor Wilson and others, alleging that his arrest violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights. [8] [9]

Rhomberg was campaign spokesman for California Proposition 85 in 2006. The proposition sought to require parental notification and a 48-hour waiting period for anyone under 18 seeking an abortion. [10] During the campaign Rhomberg argued that telephone recordings created by Life Dynamics "prove pretty unequivocally that Planned Parenthood is protecting men who sexually abuse children." [11] In 2008 he was principal advisor for the California Proposition 4 campaign, which had the same goal. [12] Both measures failed. In 2011 Rhomberg was the spokesperson for the Parental Notification Initiative Campaign. [13]

Rhomberg currently serves on the board of the Center for Medical Progress along with David Daleiden and Troy Newman. [4]

Related Research Articles

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive and sexual healthcare, and sexual education in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) and a member association of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, 546 U.S. 320 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving a facial challenge to New Hampshire's parental notification abortion law. The First Circuit had ruled that the law was unconstitutional and an injunction against its enforcement was proper. The Supreme Court vacated this judgment and remanded the case, but avoided a substantive ruling on the challenged law or a reconsideration of prior Supreme Court abortion precedent. Instead, the Court only addressed the issue of remedy, holding that invalidating a statute in its entirety "is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief."

Anti-abortion violence is violence committed against individuals and organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion counseling. Incidents of violence have included destruction of property, including vandalism; crimes against people, including kidnapping, stalking, assault, attempted murder, and murder; and crimes affecting both people and property, including arson and terrorism, such as bombings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2005 California Proposition 73</span> 2005 California ballot proposition

Proposition 73, the Parental Notification Initiative, would have amended the California Constitution to bar abortion on an unemancipated minor until 48 hours after physician notifies minor's parent/legal guardian, except in medical emergency or with parental waiver. The amendment permitted a judicial waiver of notice based on clear and convincing evidence of the minor's maturity or best interests. The minor's physician must report abortions performed on minors and State shall compile statistics. The amendment authorized monetary damages for violation. The minor must consent to abortion unless mentally incapable or in medical emergency. Permits judicial relief if minor's consent to abortion is coerced.

Troy Edward Newman-Mariotti, known as Troy Newman, is an American anti-abortion activist. He is the president of Operation Rescue, which is based in Wichita, Kansas, and sits on the board of the Center for Medical Progress.

Many jurisdictions have laws applying to minors and abortion. These parental involvement laws require that one or more parents consent or be informed before their minor daughter may legally have an abortion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2006 California Proposition 85</span> 2006 California ballot proposition

California Proposition 85, the Parental Notification Initiative, was a proposition on the ballot for California voters in the general election of November 7, 2006. It was similar to the previous year's Proposition 73. It failed by a vote of 46%-54%.

Rebecca Suzanne "Becky" Bell was an American teenage girl who died of complications from a septic abortion. After becoming pregnant, Bell inquired about a legal abortion but was hindered by Indiana state laws which required either her parents' consent or a waiver from a judge. Instead, Bell either obtained an illegal abortion or attempted to self-abort, leading to a fatal infection. The coroner found that Bell died of sepsis as a consequence of an unsterile abortion, a finding that was disputed by the anti-abortion movement. Following Bell's death, her parents became advocates for the repeal of parental consent laws.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Students for Life of America</span> Anti-abortion organization

Students for Life of America (SFLA), also known as simply Students for Life (SFL), is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, pro-life (anti-abortion) organization that has formed groups of high school and college students across the country. Currently, there are over 2,000 SFL student groups across the nation. Since 2006, more than 160,000 anti-abortion activists have completed SFLA training.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2008 California Proposition 4</span> Failed ballot proposition on abortion

Proposition 4, or the Abortion Waiting Period and Parental Notification Initiative, also known to its supporters as Sarah's Law, was an initiative state constitutional amendment in the 2008 California general election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-abortion movements</span> Movement that believes abortion should be illegal

Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionistmovements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in response to the legalization of elective abortions.

David Robert Daleiden is an American anti-abortion activist who worked for Live Action before founding the Irvine, California-based Center for Medical Progress in 2013.

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) is an anti-abortion organization founded by David Daleiden in 2013. The CMP is best known for producing undercover recordings that prompted a controversy over Planned Parenthood in 2015; CMP established a fake company to pose as buyers of fetal tissue and secretly recorded Planned Parenthood officials during meetings.

In 2015, an anti-abortion organization named the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released several videos that had been secretly recorded. Members of the CMP posed as representatives of a biotechnology company in order to gain access to both meetings with abortion providers and abortion facilities. The videos showed how abortion providers made fetal tissue available to researchers, although no problems were found with the legality of the process. All of the videos were found to be altered, according to analysis by Fusion GPS and its co-founder Glenn R. Simpson, a former investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The CMP disputed this finding, attributing the alterations to the editing out of "bathroom breaks and waiting periods". CMP had represented a longer version of the tapes as being "complete", as well as a shorter, edited version. The analysis by Fusion GPS concluded that the longer version was also edited, with skips and missing footage. Nonetheless, the videos attracted widespread media coverage; after the release of the first video, conservative lawmakers in Congress singled out Planned Parenthood and began to push bills that would strip the organization of federal family planning funding. No such attempts by Congress to cut federal family planning money from Planned Parenthood have become law. Conservative politicians in several states have also used this as an opportunity to cut or attempt to cut family planning funding at the state level.

Abortion in Illinois is legal. Laws about abortion dated to the early 1800s in Illinois; the first criminal penalties related to abortion were imposed in 1827, and abortion itself became illegal in 1867. As hospitals set up barriers in the 1950s, the number of therapeutic abortions declined. Following Roe v. Wade in 1973, Illinois passed a number of restrictions on abortion, many of which have subsequently been repealed. Illinois updated its existing abortion laws in June 2019. The state has seen a decline in the number of abortion clinics over the years, going from 58 in 1982 to 47 in 1992 to 24 in 2014.

Abortion in Colorado is legal at all stages of pregnancy. It is one of seven states without any term restrictions as to when a pregnancy can be terminated.

Abortion in California is legal up to the point of fetal viability. An abortion ban was in place by 1900, and by 1950, it was a criminal offense for a woman to have an abortion. In 1962, the American Law Institute published their model penal code as it applied to abortions, with three circumstances where they believed a physician could justifiably perform an abortion, and California adopted a version of this code. In 2002, California passed a law guaranteeing women the right to have an abortion "prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman." In 2022, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1, which amended the Constitution of California to explicitly protect the right to abortion and contraception by a margin of 33.76%.

Abortion in New Hampshire is legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy as of January 1, 2022, when a new law went into effect. Abortion was criminalized in the state by 1900. In June 2003, the state passed a parental notification law, repealing it four years later before passing a new one in 2011. New Hampshire then passed a law in 2012 which required minors to wait 48 hours after requesting an abortion but no longer required parental consent. New Hampshire law regarding abortion has been heard before the US Supreme Court in the case Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in 2006. The number of abortion clinics in New Hampshire has declined over the years, with 18 in 1982, 16 in 1992 and four in 2014. In 2010, there were three publicly funded abortions in the state; all three were federally funded. There are both active abortion rights and anti-abortion rights activists in the state.

Abortion in Maryland is legal up to the point of fetal viability and later when necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant person. The first laws regulating abortion in the state were passed in 1867 and 1868, banning abortion except by a physician to "secure the safety of the mother." Abortion providers continued to operate both within and outside of the law. Legal enforcement became more strict from the 1940s through 60s, with numerous police raids on abortion providers. In 1968, Maryland passed a liberalized abortion law that clarified the wording of the previous law, allowing abortion in hospital settings in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or when life and health were endangered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2022 California Proposition 1</span> Abortion and contraception proposition

Proposition 1, titled Constitutional Right to Reproductive Freedom and initially known as Senate Constitutional Amendment 10 (SCA 10), is a California ballot proposition and state constitutional amendment that was voted upon in the 2022 general election on November 8. Passing with more than two-thirds of the vote, the proposition amended the Constitution of California to explicitly grant the right to an abortion and contraceptives, making California among the first states in the nation to do so with Michigan and Vermont. The decision to propose the codification of abortion rights in the state constitution was precipitated in May 2022 by Politico's publishing of a leaked draft opinion showing the United States Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, reversing judicial precedent that previously held that the United States constitution protected the right to an abortion.

References

  1. Stoner, Dave (May 9, 1978). "Reg fee funded abortion okayed" (PDF). New University. Vol. 10, no. 37. p. 5.
  2. Noonan, John Thomas (1979). A Private Choice: Abortion in America in the Seventies . New York: Free Press. ISBN   0-02-923160-4.
  3. "Student lawsuit". The Human Life Review. Human Life Foundation. 4: 84. 1978.
  4. 1 2 Smith, Warren Cole (July 24, 2015). "The tipping point?". WORLD News Group.
  5. Marx, Paul (1988). Confessions of a Prolife Missionary . Gaithersburg, Maryland: Human Life International. p.  332. ISBN   1-55922-020-1.
  6. Marx, Paul (1991). Apostle of Life. Gaithersburg, Maryland: Human Life International. p. 67. ISBN   1-55922-029-5.
  7. Beyette, Beverly (January 7, 1991). "Abortion Protesters Disrupt Inaugural Church Ceremony". Los Angeles Times.
  8. 1 2 Clifton, Eli; Marcotte, Amanda (July 16, 2015). "Who's Behind the Planned Parenthood Sting Video? Troy Newman—and Other Rabid Anti-Choicers". The Nation.
  9. "Albin A. Rhomberg v. Pete Wilson, et al". Justia US Law. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit - 108 F.3d 339 (9th Cir. 1997). Retrieved August 4, 2015.
  10. Gordon, Rachel (October 9, 2006). "CAMPAIGN 2006 / PROPOSITION 85 / Parental notification for abortion back on ballot / Voters rejected a similar measure in election last fall". San Francisco Chronicle.
  11. Mieszkowski, Katharine (November 4, 2006). "Abortion foes' dirty tactics". Salon.
  12. "California judge OKs underage abortion horror stories for voter information pamphlet". Catholic News Agency. August 11, 2008.
  13. De Brito, Deia (February 14, 2011). "New initiative aims to restrict teen access to abortion". California Watch. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved August 4, 2015.