This information clearly contradicts what the Romney camp reported publicly in January. That is unacceptable and raises a serious issue for pro-lifers who have embraced him as a pro-life candidate. Posted on 07/11/2012 7:55:12 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
As presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney surged in fundraising after the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, new questions have arisen about the candidates potential ties to a company known for its disposal of aborted fetuses.
Mother Jones reports the reality of Romney’s downplayed connection with Stericycle who provides what is, perhaps, one of the most despicable business services in our nation. A medical waste company, Stericycle is infamous for its willingness to go to various abortion centers and pick up the remains of aborted babies and dispose of them as medical waste. Federal documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission show the dates in which Romney reports being connected with his investment company don’t match up with the dates in which he was listed as being involved with a large investment in Stericycle, which leads us to ask if he was connected with Stericycle at times they were disposing of aborted fetuses.
Originally reported by the Huffington Post in January, Romney’s camp managed to avoid it as a campaign issue by insisting, as the news outlet reports:
“By the time Bain Capital [Romney’s investment firm] had made the investment in Stericycle, he had left the firm to run the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He maintained ownership in Bain and kept holdings in its private equity funds, which included Stericycle stock, but he had no say in the managerial or strategic decisions at the firm, according to Bain officials.”
However, recent documents from the Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commission filed by Romney’s firm show that the timing wasn’t quite how Romney portrayed it. The document from November 22, 1999, reports, “W. Mitt Romney (“Mr. Romney”) is the sole stockholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director and President of BCI VI Inc,” (SEC FORM SC 13D) in the Stericycle investment.
That means Romney was an active member of the firm when the $75 million investment was made in Stericycle. Stericylce isn’t just a medical waste business that is above board. As recently as last year, Stericylce was cited for improper disposal of fetuses in Texas. For a quick rundown of some news articles about Stericycle’s seedy history, click here. You will find a list of fines, truck leasing companies breaking contracts with them because of their fetus disposal business, and other serious controversies that the pro-life candidate must distance himself from by addressing these issues and either showing us proof there was no abortion activity back then or publicly addressing the wrongdoing and breaking his tie with them in keeping with his pro-life conversion, rather than simply misleading the American people about the dates he was there. It’s a concern if Romney actually was the “sole shareholder” as the SEC documents say, unquestionably say he was. You can read the filings from the SEC documents here and here. (Simply do a search within them for the name “Romney” and it will show you the relevant shareholder information.)
This information clearly contradicts what the Romney camp reported publicly in January. That is unacceptable and raises a serious issue for pro-lifers who have embraced him as a pro-life candidate.
There are too many unanswered questions to let this issue be a non-issue in this race. The man running on a pro-life platform actually was the “sole shareholder” in a company that made a $75 million investment in a company that has for an indeterminate amount of time profited directly from from the shedding of innocent blood. Their work helps polluted the land with bloodshed, putting fetuses in incinerators and waste areas. Stericycle is evasive in its responses to those who question its abortion business, claiming that abortion is only a “small portion” of its business, which is only true on a technicality. There are only a few hundred abortion centers in the nation and many more medical facilities that need waste services; however, Stericycle is the largest provider of disposing of fetal remains. Stop Stericycle.com reports:
Aside from the fact that we have recorded phone calls of Stericycle’s own representatives admitting that they accept fetal remains, many people are confused about Stericycle’s waste acceptance policy. The vaguely worded policy does not mention fetal remains, but rather craftily states that “complete human remains” are unacceptable. Stericycle has told the Campaign to Stop Stericycle (CSS) that it does not know when a fetus is considered to be human, and that the determination is up to the abortion mill and state law. Obviously, abortion mills never admit that aborted babies are human.
Additionally, during an undercover investigation, the Campaign to Stop Stericycle obtained a hypothetical contract for an abortion mill in which the pickup of fetal remains was included. CSS was also informed that the abortion mill would receive “incinerate only” stickers so that the fetal remains would be incinerated.
Furthermore, Stericycle is currently under government investigation in the state of Texas for illegally dumping aborted fetuses into a municipal landfill. During the initial investigation, Stericycle representatives told the government that “medical waste containing fetuses or tissue should be sent for incineration,” and that aborted fetuses in Texas should be transported to Stericycle’s plant in Apopka, Florida to be incinerated.
Because of such a clear controversy of pro-life issues, and the reports which show that the Romney’s investment firm ultimately profited $49.5 million from the Stericycle investment. There are two important questions we must address:
First, we do not have any evidence that the aborted fetal remains pick-ups began after Romney left the firm. Records like this are not easily available unless one knows what he is seeking exactly. StopStericycle.com has records from 2003, which is after Romney left, but until Stericycle or Romney can provide evidence that Stericycle’s suddenly started its business with fetuses after Romney sold his investment, we can’t conclusively be satisfied that was the case.
Second, Romney claims a pro-life conversion, though he does allows for exceptions in certain cases. He must address his relationship with the abortion profiteer. Even if some evidence exists showing perhaps it was after he sold his investment, Stericycle began this practice, Romney needs to address this to pro-lifers because he is running on a pro-life platform but is tied in some ways to a business linked to abortion since clearly the dates of his involvement were not as he reported.
We are a nation that endorses and sanctions the shedding of innocent blood, and we must draw a clear and bold line in the pro-life community that doesn’t allow for a blur that might have occurred in the name of business.
Romney cannot remain silent on this issue. After the inconsistencies about the dates, we know, it’s not enough to assume a conclusion that they didn’t pick up fetuses then.
According to Stericycle, “We became a publicly traded company in 1996, and emerged as North America’s largest provider of medical waste services in 2000.
So when did fetus pick up begin? How does the now pro-life Romney address this? The lines blur too much, and while we hope that some evidence may exist to show that Stericycle did not get involved in the abortion industry until after Romney left, we have not seen that. We’d like to.Bound4LIFE is still pursuing information on this story and searching for documents and updates; we will bring you updates as we have them.
“The silence from most pro-lifers on this story is deafening...and telling.”
Because the only thing they are pro for is power. And “their” guy having it.
My copy of the Constitution grants power from We the People only to the legislative branch to make laws.
Article One, Section 1"ALL LEGISLATIVE POWERS HEREIN GRANTED shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
What document are you reading from?
That’s pretty much the way it is, for sure.
And any "law" that is not in accord with the Constitution is null and void anyway.
Chief Justice Marshall, our first Chief Justice, said exactly that in the final summarizing paragraph of Marbury v. Madison, the most lied about court decision in U.S. history:
"[T]he particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument"
Here is what the Constitution imperatively requires:
"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.""No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."
That is the Supreme Law of the Land; supreme over the Congress. Supreme over the Court. Supreme over the Executive. Binding on all. No exceptions. Not optional.
-- Article VI, the United States Constitution “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and ALL executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution..."
You may be able to convince your sleazy self that your righteousness is unimpeachable, but you are an all or nothing man willing to have tens of thousands of unborn slaughtered rather than support a law banning the heinous evil known as partial birth abortion. That is what you are, not this false man of principles. What good are your ‘positions’ if they result in more rather than less slaughter? You’re a fake, a fraud, and I’m more tempted every day to expose the rest of your history. You’re exploiting people through your self righteous fakery.
If my character was anything like your repeated slanders would suggest, I wouldn’t even be here. Folks like you paint me as don’t tell people hard truths they don’t want to hear. They pander to them and tickle their ears.
Your insinuations are a form of character assassination fit only for the worst sort of Alinskyite democrat.
Your use of such tactics says far more about you than it does about me.
Most Freepers know you are an all or nothing exploiter of the abortion holocaust. You have some convinced of your righteousness, but there are some who know you better than that.
Nonsense.
First I heard of this EV. Thanks.
My gut says Romney’s conversion was for political convenience. Everything in his past, including this, affirms that he was a radical pro-abortionist.
It is only a very naive pro-lifer who would accept Romney as being pro-life.
Indeed. Especially when you go to his website, peel away the one layer of lies, and read the facts about what he thinks, still.
He thinks courts make our laws. In other words, his default position is in favor of abortion on demand.
He also takes the anti-republican, pro-choice democrat view that our most important unalienable right should be left to a vote, or to the states.
Rights do not exist because some nice government-minded men wrote them on a piece of paper.
They are the God-given prerogatives of every human being.
-- The Declaration of Independence “Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can … it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.” – Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists (November 20, 1772) "Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these." -- William Blackstone "The public good is in nothing more essentially interested than in the protection of every individual's private rights." "Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture." -- William Blackstone "There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained." -- George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789 "Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind." -- James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791 "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." -- Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."
Thanks for the ping, Tom. I wish I could have stopped by earlier, but it’s been that kind of day.
I first learned of Romney’s involvement in this sordid “business” last week. I was shocked at first, but Romney was raised in a Mormon, anti-Christian household.
I am less surprised by the sympathy for Romney and his Stericycle that is expressed here by so many of the posters. It really just confirms that many Republicans are much more tolerant of abortion than they like to admit. Many of the posters here are more Republican than conservative, more secular than Christian. And, there’s nothing we can do about that.
But, it’s sad.
Obama not only promotes partial birth abortion, but also supports the denial of life-saving treatment to abortion victims born alive. Furthermore, he intends to FORCE the Catholic Church to participate in abortions. If he manages to win (or steal) the election, he will continue to advance his Mengele-esque agenda until all viable opposition is defeated. NO other viable candidate has supported the pro-death agenda to the same degree as Obama.
In regard to Dr. Nathanson, you said:
He then became a Christian and finally a Roman Catholic.
Here is an exerpt from the "Voters' Guide For Serious Catholics" published by Priests for Life:
WHEN THERE IS NO "ACCEPTABLE" CANDIDATE
In some political races, each candidate takes a wrong position on one or more issues involving non-negotiable moral principles. In such a case you may vote for the candidate who takes the fewest such positions or who seems least likely to be able to advance immoral legislation, or you may choose to vote for no one.
A vote cast in such a situation is not morally the same as a positive endorsement for candidates, laws, or programs that promote intrinsic evils: It is only tolerating a lesser evil to avoid an even greater evil. As Pope John Paul II indicated regarding a situation where it is not possible to overturn or completely defeat a law allowing abortion, "an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality"(EV 73; also CPL 4).
Catholics must strive to put in place candidates, laws, and political programs that are in full accord with non-negotiable moral values. Where a perfect candidate, law, or program is not on the table, we are to choose the best option, the one that promotes the greatest good and entails the least evil.
The Boston Globe is now reporting that in 2003, Romney admitted that, in 2002, he had still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital.
In other words, Romney’s lying about having left Bain Capital in 1999.
Why are you saying that?
See post 177.
Yes, it means that Romney has been deceptive about his involvement in Bain following 1999. I assume that you were relying on Romney's deception when you stated that "Bain got involved with Stericycle after Romney left to go handle the Olympics." I am not suggesting that you were the source of that deception. For some reason, you apparently believed that you could rely upon Romney to tell the truth about this matter. You should know better now.
it still doesn't show when Stericycle became involved in this line of "business," that Romney knew about that line of business, etc.
Well, I'm going to assume that Romney knew just about all there was to know about any companies he purchased an interest in. If Romney chooses to claim that he didn't know what he was doing when he bought and sold companies, then we'll just have to evaluate that kind of statement if and when he makes it. In the meantime, I think it's fair for me to assume that he thoroughly investigated the companies he bought.
If and when Romney or Stericycle claims that Stericycle waited until Romney sold his interest in Stericyle before trafficking in the bodies of little boys and girls murdered in abortion mills, then we can evaluate that kind of claim if and when it is made, bearing in mind that Romney can no longer be relied upon to provide truthful information about this matter.
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