Christopher Clukey was born and raised in Portland, Maine and its suburbs and now resides in Freeport, Illinois.
He served proudly in the U.S. Air Force during the Gulf War/late Cold War era as a ground crew chief on KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft, eventually crewing the 380th Wing’s “VIP jet”, The Spirit of Plattsburgh.
He is a graduate with high honors from Highland Community College.
Mr. Clukey has written over 100 short humor pieces for the Grudge Match website, is a columnist for the Freeport Ink and has also written for The Opinion.com.
He and his lovely wife Carol have three children.
He enjoys building scale models, rousing the rabble and leading a Tiger Cub Scout Den.
If you wish to make any comments, he can be reached at clukey@prolifecorner.com.
Christopher Clukey
May 19, 2005
What does the recent flurry of legal activity surrounding one aspect of abortion mean, and does it have implications for Northwest Illinois?
In all 50 states, medical personnel are required to inform child welfare of evidence of child abuse, including statutory rape. Even in states like Illinois where there’s no parental notification required for an abortion, pregnancies resulting from abuse require a report. Though some underage pregnancies involve underage fathers, a pregnant 13 year old is certainly as much evidence of abuse as an unexplained bruise or fracture. That’s where the flurry comes in.
The Attorneys General of Kansas and Indiana are demanding a total of about 180 medical records from abortion clinics in their states, including every Planned Parenthood clinic in Indiana. They claim they have credible evidence that the clinics covered up the statutory rape of minor girls by adult males.
Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio is being sued over an abortion performed on a 14 year old. Though she gave her father’s name and address to the clinic, they did not notify her parents as required by law, or make a report to child welfare, even though she was brought to the clinic by her 21 year old boyfriend. After he claimed to be a “stepbrother,” he was put in the driver’s seat for her medical care; later he was put in jail for sexual battery.
An Alaskan lawsuit doesn’t involve statutory rape, but is a chilling case of an adult taking bizarre liberties with a child. Frantic parents reported their 15 year old daughter missing when she failed to come home after school. It turned out a social worker from an Anchorage hospital had taken her on an overnight trip to Washington State to obtain an abortion.
Isolated cases? A fishing expedition by “anti-choice” politicians and lawyers? Not according to a two year investigation by the pro-life group Life Dynamics. A member of the organization called over 800 clinics, claiming to be a 13 year old girl impregnated by a 22 year old man, and made the age difference very clear. In 91% of the phone calls (including 21 calls in Illinois) the clinic workers said they would not report the abuse to authorities. For example, clinic workers in Pekin and Chicago described the legal issues to her in detail, including the fact that the abuser could “got to jail.” A Peoria worker said she’d put a note in the girl’s appointment file so the clinic counselor would know not to ask her for details was and they could avoid reporting the abuse.
And at Rockford’s Northern Illinois Women’s Center, they were no less helpful. The clinic worker first offered to establish a line of communication that would hide the relationship from the girl’s parents. Then she and the girl decided that the best way to avoid reporting was to have the girl come alone, or omit information. The clinic worker finishes this part of the discussion by saying, “I mean, he has nothing to do with this…It has everything to do with you. We don't require any information about him at all. I mean, we do ask who you came with, but all you have to say is ‘my boyfriend.’” See, this surgical procedure has everything to do with a girl who can’t consent to get her own ears pierced, and nothing to do with her abuser or her parents. Transcripts and MP3’s for this and other Illinois clinics can be found at http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/sectionview.asp?s=170.
How would you feel about a liquor store that helps teenagers organize keggers? A gun shop selling handguns to minors and telling them how to keep the gun hidden from Mom and Dad? A local physician willing to give steroid injections to student athletes? How about an orthopedic surgeon willing to repair abuse fractures without reporting the abuse? A surgeon doing any non-emergency procedure without parental permission? Are these “don’t ask, don’t tell” situations? Would anyone say it’s a matter of privacy, or keeping kids safe, or helping them? Would anyone even debate whether it was right or wrong?
Commenting on their efforts to stop the subpoena of medical records, Planned Parenthood of Indiana’s CEO told WTHR TV in Indianapolis, "It is very important that our patients know that when they come through our door for service that it is private, it is safe." The question is who is made safe? Not the girl or her child, but only the abuser.
Is that a status quo we’re willing to accept?
How would you like to receive (or buy and send) Christmas cards from the NRA with the message “Peace on Earth through the use of magnum hollow points?” How about a set of “Jesus loves welfare reform” cards from the American Conservative Union? A card from David Duke wishing you and yours “an all-white Christmas?” Or AFL-CIO cards that reminding those on your Christmas card list that the Christ Child was wrapped in swaddling clothes proudly made in the USA by members of United Textile Workers Local 402?
Sorry if I got your hopes up, because none of those particular cards are available, though the NRA folks do sell some nice non-political cards with Terry Redlin paintings on them. But if you’d like to send a card that promotes abortion on demand, I have something right up your alley. Planned Parenthood is selling Christmas cards again this year.
Yes, you read that right. Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States (or on the planet, for that matter) is selling holiday cards with the uplifting message “Choice on Earth.” The inside message reads, “Warmest wishes for a peaceful holiday.” I guess they can put that message in there because they know that children in the womb (who they are anything but peaceful toward) don’t read Christmas cards. The cards are also available with “Peace Hope Justice” on the cover. An organization whose core competency is turning small children into medical waste has as much business selling “Peace Hope and Justice” cards as Enron has going into the retirement planning business.
Of course, if you already have purchased your Christmas cards, you could always do your Christmas shopping at their online store (located at www.plannedparenthood.com/pp2/portal/store/) where you can find any number of delightful items to stuff those stockings. For example, there’s the “Choice is sexy” short sleeve tee. Yes, what could be more arousing than evacuating “products of conception” from the womb? And for the littlest ones on your list, don’t forget the “Brought to you by Planned Parenthood” baby onesies and “Choice” baby beanie hats. Of course, I figure those clothing items are the equivalent of taking out your Sharpie and writing “Brought to you by Trim-Rite” on the side of a pig, but it’s your money.
Some readers will be offended by my remarks above. But what could be more brazen and offensive than trying to turn the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace into a celebration of the death of 40 million innocent kids? What could be more hypocritical than the folks who brought you “keep your rosaries off my ovaries” deciding to play the Jesus card? The Left in general has been making desperate attempts to churchify their movement, because it turns out they really believe their own press about conservatism being run by religious zealots and therefore they want to rescue Christianity from us. Getting religion saves the Left from having to defend the disastrous effects of their policies here in the earthly realm: “It doesn’t seem to work, but trust me, God likes it.” But don’t forget, only conservatives can be theocrats trying to mix politics and religion.
The abortion movement has followed the trend: Planned Parenthood recently added a chaplain to their senior staff, presumably so they can have a teacher who will tell them what their itching ears want to hear.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not even angry about it. I feel great sadness for all the women the abortion movement has damaged, but I think all this gear (don’t forget the “I had an abortion” T-shirts) is a sign of a movement that is dying off in the age of ultrasound. They want to be in our faces with it, because when you come right down to it, being in our faces is the only thing they’ve got left.
Since not even the most irreligious person would back killing a child, abortion is only a religious subject to the extent that people of religious faith are involved in the debate, but since the folks at Planned Parenthood want to stake out religious ground, I’ll close with two Nativity-related questions:
If an unmarried teen girl from a poor community is romantically involved with an older man and finds herself pregnant, what would Planned Parenthood advise her to do? What worth would they place on her offspring’s life?
And does the “choice” Planned Parenthood loves so much borrow from “let the little children come to me” or does it have more of a King Herod vibe?
Did you know that privacy rights extend to the activities of sexual predators, in practice? They do across our great nation and right here in Northwest Illinois.
This discovery was made by the Life Dynamics organization in a recent two year investigation. A member of the organization called over 800 clinics, claiming to be a 13 year old girl impregnated by a 22 year old man, and made the age difference very clear. The clinics were all members of either Planned Parenthood (PP) or the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and all either perform abortions or refer patients for them.
Even though medical personnel are “mandatory reporters” of such child abuse in all 50 states, in 91% of the phone calls the clinic agreed to hide the sexual predator’s crime from the authorities. Many times she was told to lie about her age or give a false name and/or contact information. In a few cases, clinic workers told the girl to take advantage of “judicial bypass” to avoid parental notification. The problem is they would also tell her to lie to the judge about her adult boyfriend’s age. Referrals to clinics in states without parental notification were common. Over and over again, the girl was offered “help” which ensured her abuser would continue to abuse her.
It should be noted that Life Dynamics isn’t a neutral party. They want abortion to go away except where it saves the mother’s life. The list of abortion clinics on their website is headlined “American Death Camps” and their report on the child rape investigation openly discusses how this information can be used against the abortion industry in lawsuits. Unfortunately for the pro-abortion crowd, Life Dynamics’ taped evidence is as ironclad as their pro-life convictions. If you’re an adult male who wants to use young girls for sexual gratification, your local PP or NAF affiliate is almost certainly ready to assist.
Fortunately, others are catching on. The Attorney’s General of Kansas and Indiana are demanding a total of about 180 medical records from abortion clinics in their states, including every Planned Parenthood clinic in Indiana. Both want the records for the same reason: They have credible evidence that the clinics engaged in exactly the sort of cover-up that Life Dynamics was documenting.
And what about Northwest Illinois? I spoke to Life Dynamics founder Mark Crutcher, and the results were eye-opening. Both of the nearby facilities were solidly in the rapist-friendly camp. When the girl asked if her boyfriend could come with her, a clinic worker at Monroe’s Planned Parenthood said he could “as long as he has the money.” At the Northern Illinois Women’s Center in Rockford they were no less helpful. The clinic worker first offered to establish a line of communication that would hide the relationship from the girl’s parents, i.e., using a number with a Caller I.D. block. Then she and the girl decided that the best way to avoid reporting was to have the girl come alone, or omit information. The clinic worker finishes this part of the discussion by saying, “I mean, he has nothing to do with this…It has everything to do with you. We don't require any information about him at all. I mean, we do ask who you came with, but all you have to say is ‘my boyfriend.’”
See, this surgical procedure has everything to do with a girl who can’t consent to get her own ears pierced, and nothing to do with her abuser or her parents. Transcripts and MP3’s for this and other Illinois clinics can be found at http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/sectionview.asp?s=170.
Abortion providers in Kansas and Indiana are refusing to cooperate with authorities, claiming that the investigations are a fishing expedition that violates privacy. If a date rapist using a prescription sedative on his victims could count on his pharmacist to stonewall the authorities in the name of privacy, would we be outraged? Would we figure that catching the rapist would be bad for the victims? Privacy is not the issue; protection of kids is the issue.
Commenting on their stonewalling efforts, Planned Parenthood of Indiana CEO Betty Cockrum told WTHR TV in Indianapolis, "It is very important that our patients know that when they come through our door for service that it is private, it is safe." But when a baby ends up dead and a girl ends up in a cycle of abuse, who’s being kept safe? The criminal is kept safe, and your friendly neighborhood abortionist counts the cash for services rendered.
If you’ve paid any attention to the abortion debate, you’ve heard some variant of an already old chestnut: “Anti-choicers want all these babies born, but they don’t want to adopt them, help the mothers, do social work or pay higher taxes. They’re part of the problem.” That accusation may come from rhetorical expedience or simple ignorance, but those who make it have never met Sherrie Bicksler.
Bicksler is the director of the Freeport Pregnancy Center, and caring for disadvantaged mothers and children is her full-time job. The Center’s staff (mostly volunteers) provides assistance, prayer and listening ears to hundreds of clients each year. They have personal contact with between 175 and 200 clients per month, including 35-40 new clients. They offer free and confidential pregnancy tests and can refer a client to other agencies for any need, from education to domestic violence counseling.
The aim is to show God’s love, to be, as Bicksler says, “Jesus with skin on” in the client’s hour of crisis. Donations are accepted “as from God,” she observes, “and He always makes sure it goes to someone who needs it." For example, five times in the last four years she’s seen Center supporters completely equip and furnish the apartments of formerly homeless clients with donated items. She credits the success to the Center’s dedicated prayer team.
Yet this special place isn’t unique. The Center is a member of CareNet, an organization of over 700 pregnancy centers across the United States and Canada. Each is a place where a woman backed into a corner can find kindness and real solutions. It’s not unique in our area, where a Yahoo search on “abortion alternatives” brings up 16 results within 50 miles. Strangely, a search on “Planned Parenthood soup kitchens” returned no results.
Pregnancy centers aren’t the only area pro-lifers impact. I look around my church, and I see mentors, volunteers for NHS and the school district, people who preach in nursing homes and jails. If all the pro-lifers in town gave up on helping “the least of these,” how would it all get done? Pro-lifers also put their parenting where their mouth is and adopt. A member of our county Right to Life Committee wrote, “We are not, by any means, wealthy financially; but the love and joy our adopted child has brought into our life makes us rich indeed. We asked for a special needs child; we found the only special need the child had was the need for a loving family.”
Even if pro-lifers weren’t devoting themselves to making lives better, would they be such hypocrites? If you don’t have to be a civil rights activist to be outraged about a lynching, why would you have to adopt a handicapped child before you could legitimately object to children’s lives being snuffed out? It’s thick irony that the vast majority of pro-choicers are political liberals. For decades, they’ve told us that we need ever more bloated government programs to take care of every need of the downtrodden. Yet when some of us want to put a stop to the killing of small children, they demand to know why we haven’t handled all the problems they said the state would cure.
So why does the myth of the uninvolved pro-lifer exist? Sadly, such wordplay is all that is left for the advocates of abortion. In the age of ultrasound, one can’t really argue that a fetus isn’t a baby. It’s easier to say that your opponents are hypocrites who should shut up, but like so many other pro-abortion arguments, it collapses immediately upon contact with facts.
I won’t pretend supporters of abortion never do anything to help the community. Still, it strikes me that community service is often prescribed as punishment for non-violent criminals. Since abortion is violent, but not technically criminal, perhaps area pro-aborts could throw in a few extra hours each week to atone for the blood this vaunted “right” has cost us. Roll up your sleeves, folks: there are about 4,000 abortions per day, and you’re already 40,000,000 kids behind.
Christopher Clukey
March 3, 2005
A priest walks into a patient’s room on St. Patrick’s Day and offers to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,”…in Polish.
Does that sound like a joke to you? It got a laugh out of Terri Schiavo.
Schiavo, as you’ve no doubt heard, is a patient at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, who suffered brain damage after collapsing in 1990 and is the focus of a long court fight between her husband Michael and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Barring a legal win for the Schindlers, her feeding tube will be removed on the 18th. Michael claims she will never recover and would want the tube removed; she’d expressed worry about being a burden or living on a machine. The Schindlers say she’s been denied treatment, has a chance to recover, and would be no burden at all, because they’ll take care of her.
One of the Schindlers’ supporters is Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, the Polish priest I mentioned. He filed an affidavit swearing (among other things) that Terri recognizes him, and that one Saint Patrick’s Day he really did walk into her room and offer to sing her an Irish diddy in Polish. Her response was to laugh. That’s a remarkable response from a person who supposedly is operating on little more than a brain stem, a “vegetative” person. Quick, go to the fridge and tell a cucumber a knock-knock joke! OK, did you get a laugh? I didn’t think so.
The problem is, for every piece of evidence like that, there’s one that makes it look like Terri might just be vegetative, and so on in circles. But I submit there are at least two things we know for sure.
First, this case at its core is about whether we will cause a woman to die of starvation. That’s Terri’s most likely fate if her tube is removed, and it’s one of the most horrible deaths any human can endure. It is so drastic that this alone should be reason enough to let her live; nothing so horrible could ever be merciful or dignified, and to be quite frank, feeding isn’t exactly a heroic measure.
Second, Michael Schiavo has been acting so weird he makes Hunter S. Thompson look like Joe Friday. If we believe his court testimony, the timeline goes like this: Some years prior to Terri’s collapse she told him that she would never want to “live on a machine” or be a burden. Yet in 1992, his lawyer told a jury Michael might need enough money to take care of her for another half-century. Michael proclaimed from the witness stand that he would become a nurse and take care of her “for the rest of [his] life.” By 1993, he had stopped rehabilitation (which was showing promising results), had put a “Do not resuscitate” order in her chart, tried to deny her antibiotic treatment for an infection, melted down her wedding ring and euthanized her cats. In other words, he ignored what she said about being a burden, then swore in court to take on the burden, but decided a few months later it was too much of a burden.
He isn’t doing it for the money that was awarded in the malpractice suits—it’s all been used up in legal fees. Sure he could be a loving husband trying to carry out her wishes, but then why risk her death through sepsis and whack her cats? A woman may die based on the testimony of this one man, and our best hope is that he’s loopy and greatly misunderstood.
This isn’t about turning off a respirator or carrying out a living will, this is about a court deciding that casual, decade-old conversations about life support translate into begging to be starved. If the judicial system can make that leap, are we far from the days when the judges just go ahead and decide our fates for us? Why bother with a living will when you can have some black-robed potentate decide for you?
Some people think Terri is a very special person, but she’s not. She’s just like the rest of us.
That’s the part that scares me the most.
Christopher Clukey
February 3, 2005
Ah, February! Winter is getting pretty old, but the turn of the calendar means one thing for sure: We’ve all received our W2s and 1099s, and that means we get to file our taxes!
Hmmm…probably not many of you are very enthusiastic about that, and I’m sure my wife (who does our taxes) will read this and ask, “What do you mean, ‘we,’ Kemo Sabe?” Okay, so tax time is painful. And I’m sorry I’m about to make it even less fun by telling you where some of your money might end up. But before I do that, let me throw a scenario at you.
Remember the AIDS drug cocktail? It took thousands of HIV-positive Americans off death row and gave them a reprieve of years, even decades. Imagine if the president had walked into those drug research labs, pointed at some mice that weren’t producing results and said, “I’ve got a feeling the medicine you’re using with this group is the one that will work eventually. So concentrate on them and throw taxpayer dollars at this until you get something.”
Doesn’t make any sense, does it? Well, my little parable isn’t far from what’s happening right now with embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).
Embryonic stem cells are obtained by letting a human embryo develop to a certain size, then harvesting cells that haven’t differentiated themselves into specific types. Theoretically, these cells could be coaxed into becoming any cell type: nerve cells, pancreatic cells, etc. After this harvesting, the embryo is destroyed. Such research is now being touted as the source for cures for a wide range of ailments, such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
The potential and tragedy inherent in these treatments has led to some high political drama. ESCR advocates have loudly accused opponents of being blind to suffering, willing to choose a microscopic dot over living patients, or of being “flat earth” types who are simply against scientific progress. Opponents have been painting the ESCR researchers as modern day snake oil salesmen sacrificing human lives for fat research grants.
So, let’s put aside the politics. What does the science tell us?
James Kelly, a paraplegic and ESCR opponent who has publicly debated Christopher Reeve on this subject, wrote last October, “[Embryonic stem cells’] tendency toward uncontrollable growth and tumor formation has so far made them unfit for any trials in humans. Even in animal trials they have not been able to treat long-lasting or chronic injury.”
Meanwhile, the number of ailments with working treatments using adult stem cells—cells taken from non-embryo sources such as a patient’s own body, or umbilical cord blood—is at 56 and rising. The diseases covered run from brain and ovarian cancer to limb gangrene.
That’s 0 to 56, and the camp with the big score doesn’t have to clone or kill a single embryo to do it. Fifty-six medical breakthroughs, zero ethical dilemmas.
Last year when Christopher Reeve passed away, John Edwards said that when John Kerry became president, he would dramatically increase ESCR funding and people like Reeve would get out of their chairs and walk. Well, two years ago a paraplegic named Erica Nader received a stem cell treatment in her spinal column, cells taken from her own nose. And now, with leg braces, Erica is walking.
Well, it appears we’ve circled back to politics, but why is this even an issue? Perhaps it’s just a lack of proper economic perspective, the bioethical equivalent of the $600 government hammer. Perhaps it’s about knee-jerk political reactions: Many secularists think pro-lifers don’t care about anything older than the third trimester, and many pro-lifers hear “bio-ethics” and think of people like Jack Kevorkian. It could be about the power that legislators gain when they pass out money, or about helping the pro-choicers by making fetal research easier to do down the line.
Just keep this in mind: A pro-ESCR bill that would have opened the way to funding it with Illinois taxpayer dollars failed in our Senate last year--by only one vote. If we aren’t careful, by next tax time we may be paying for futility and death at premium prices.
Christopher Clukey
July 15, 2004
If you’ve paid any attention to the abortion debate, you’ve heard some variant of an already old chestnut: “Anti-choicers want all these babies born, but they don’t want to adopt them, help the mothers, do social work or pay higher taxes. They’re part of the problem.” That accusation may come from rhetorical expedience or simple ignorance, but those who make it have never met Sherrie Bicksler.
Bicksler is the director of the Freeport Pregnancy Center, and caring for disadvantaged mothers and children is her full-time job. The Center’s staff (mostly volunteers) provides assistance, prayer and listening ears to hundreds of clients each year. They have personal contact with between 175 and 200 clients per month, including 35-40 new clients. They offer free and confidential pregnancy tests and can refer a client to other agencies for any need, from education to domestic violence counseling.
The aim is to show God’s love, to be, as Bicksler says, “Jesus with skin on” in the client’s hour of crisis. Donations are accepted “as from God,” she observes, “and He always makes sure it goes to someone who needs it." For example, five times in the last four years she’s seen Center supporters completely equip and furnish the apartments of formerly homeless clients with donated items. She credits the success to the Center’s dedicated prayer team.
Yet this special place isn’t unique. The Center is a member of CareNet, an organization of over 700 pregnancy centers across the United States and Canada. Each is a place where a woman backed into a corner can find kindness and real solutions. It’s not unique in our area, where a Yahoo search on “abortion alternatives” brings up 16 results within 50 miles. Strangely, a search on “Planned Parenthood soup kitchens” returned no results.
Pregnancy centers aren’t the only area pro-lifers impact. I look around my church, and I see mentors, volunteers for NHS and the school district, people who preach in nursing homes and jails. If all the pro-lifers in town gave up on helping “the least of these,” how would it all get done? Pro-lifers also put their parenting where their mouth is and adopt. A member of our county Right to Life Committee wrote, “We are not, by any means, wealthy financially; but the love and joy our adopted child has brought into our life makes us rich indeed. We asked for a special needs child; we found the only special need the child had was the need for a loving family.”
Even if pro-lifers weren’t devoting themselves to making lives better, would they be such hypocrites? If you don’t have to be a civil rights activist to be outraged about a lynching, why would you have to adopt a handicapped child before you could legitimately object to children’s lives being snuffed out? It’s thick irony that the vast majority of pro-choicers are political liberals. For decades, they’ve told us that we need ever more bloated government programs to take care of every need of the downtrodden. Yet when some of us want to put a stop to the killing of small children, they demand to know why we haven’t handled all the problems they said the state would cure.
So why does the myth of the uninvolved pro-lifer exist? Sadly, such wordplay is all that is left for the advocates of abortion. In the age of ultrasound, one can’t really argue that a fetus isn’t a baby. It’s easier to say that your opponents are hypocrites who should shut up, but like so many other pro-abortion arguments, it collapses immediately upon contact with facts.
I won’t pretend supporters of abortion never do anything to help the community. Still, it strikes me that community service is often prescribed as punishment for non-violent criminals. Since abortion is violent, but not technically criminal, perhaps area pro-aborts could throw in a few extra hours each week to atone for the blood this vaunted “right” has cost us. Roll up your sleeves, folks: there are about 4,000 abortions per day, and you’re already 40,000,000 kids behind.